HD 'Theorem Arc Combustion No 6,7,8, 9 and so on
by tigersilver
Summary: WIP, on hiatus; AU,EWE,Hogwarts profs in luuurve. The comparison of the scientific clarity of combustion fire, explosion, flame, hearth to the emotional fog induced by music, all in a soggy, sodden, soppy, angst-ridden romance format.
1. Chapter 1

HP Theorem: Combustion

[There is no 'simple' formula for combustion. 'Combustion or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species. The release of heat can result in the production of light in the form of either glowing or a flame.' Wikipedia.

Music can be compared to combustion. Emotion is often likened to fire, explosions, flames and heat and light of a multitude of degrees, intensity and meaning. Music is used to express emotion, for the most part.

Thus, this fic is inspired in part by 'Feuer frei! - Rammstein, 'Ring of Fire' - Johnny Cash, 'Fire' - Crazy World of Arthur Brown, 'Scream! Aim! Fire!' - Bullet For My Valentine, 'I Caught Fire(In Your Eyes)' - The Used, and many more.

_A crescendo, a slow-burning deflagration, an incendiary device, a hearth.]_

Movement 1: allegro appassionato

Regular day. Cuddle, snog, suck and then up – finally, protesting all the way; lav, tea, croissant. Papers. Briefcase. Find things, snog again, last touch, out-the-door.

"See you there. It's Wednesday, so—"

"Yeah. Where's—?"

"Left-hand drawer, wardrobe. Don't forg—"

"I know, I _know_. Git. I'm not brainless."

"Then how come _I'm _ready and you're not? I'm not covering for—"

"Wanker."

"Love you, too, sweetums. Ten minutes, no more. Be there, Potter."

"Yes, dear."

"I'll get you a coffee—"

"_Yes_, please. I'm on it, alright? Five minutes, tops. Really."

"Promise?"

One kiss, two kisses, out-the-door. Finally.

Weekend day. Snog, shag, snog some more, nap, shag again, tea, shag in shower, more tea. Dress and choose brunch venue. Eat, shop, change clothes, apparate to Hyde's Wizarding fields for Auror's League Quidditch practice. Shower again. Drinks, dinner somewhere (Harry's choice, which meant the Gryffindor's choice, usually); practice patience, bite tongue; go home. Or. Go clubbing with whoever was available or catch a show or both. Whatever. They were free and easy. Home again, much later. Bed. Cuddle. Snog. Sleep.

"Then there's that new place Blaise and Pans recommended. The one near Grammercy."

"Cas or snaz?"

"Snaz, probably. Cretin. S'not like you don't have something to wear now—"

"You took all the buttons off my favorite shirt two days ago, remember?"

"You've got more shirts."

"Ugh. Too many."

"Right. Stuff it. Check the hangers on your side. The new ones."

"Ah…brill. Ta. Wait—_three _of them?"

"Like that shirt."

"Still…don't you think that's a little anal, Draco? _Three?_"

"Shut it, Harry. I can if I want to. And come here. I'm tired."

"….never going to get out the door at this rate."

"S'alright. Don't want you to."

"Draco!"

"Mmmm."

"May I just remind you I'm starving here? Going to expire soon—"

"Shut up, Harry."

*

Home again. Every night, every morning; start from there, pass 'Go!', collect 200 quid. The elves tidy up, so not much to do there. Work desultorily on Transfigurations monologue due for upcoming publication. Merlin, but Severus could badger with the best of them. Sherry at four on Sundays; Harry's clothes on the floor. Faces in the fire, inviting, asking, arranging. Pans's day, endlessly; Grainger's bitching about monolithic rules and regulations; friendly sniping with Nott about scheduling 'friendly' practices; Weasley wanting to talk to Harry _again_.

"Got you something."

"Oh? Is it raspberry? Or chocolate?"

"Berk. You'll like it."

"Hum. We'll see."

Paper rustling. It's a small box, a jeweler's box, and it's February, and there go the muscles in his midsection again, tightening up. It would be just like Harry to do it this way—Draco wonders if he'll manage not to cry.

"Like 'em? They're Wizarding Pianegonda; that new spring on-line catalogue you bookmarked."

"…Yes. Yes, Harry, I do."

He wonders if he'll manage not to cry.

"So, um, wear them tonight, okay? For the Ministry thingy."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks, Harry. They're beautiful."

"No skin. I _like_ buying you presents."


	2. Chapter 2

HP Theorem Combustion

Movement 2: Agitato

Home again. Refrain most pleasing. Armchair shags and snogs in the kitchen. Touching Harry wherever and whenever possible. It's a disease he's got; there's no cure. He's happy; they're happy. Harry's busy but then so is he. Bloody workaholics. Mum pops in, Teddy's in and out like a bloody jack-in-the-box with Aunt Andromeda; Pans is demanding something from the foyer floo and he can't find his new broom. Where's Harry?

"So, Draco."

"Yes, Mum?"

"…so, when exactly are you and Harry planning on—"

"Mum, don't ask. Please."

"Draco, really! I'm just curious, darling, you know that."

"Yes, Mum. Just don't go button-holing Harry—you promised you wouldn't do that after last time, remember?"

"Well…time's passing, darling. You're not getting any younger—"

"I know, Mum. Look, just drop it—"

"And Harry's such a nice boy. One can see that he's _serious_—"

"Yes, Mum. So am I, so just stop, please. We'll get to it."

"Of course you will, dear boy—the question is when. _I'm_ not getting any younger—"

"Mum! Look, I can't force this—"

"…No. I understand that, Draco, but in my opinion—"

"_Please_. Please, just stop, Mum."

*

"Well, I must say I'm very sorry to hear that, Malfoy."

"Yes, well."

"Especially since I'm losing both of you at once. It's a crying shame, if you ask me. So…are you _sure_…?"

"Yes."

"Er…right, then. And I guess this isn't up for discussion, is it? You've made up your minds?"

"The Headmaster and Professor McGonagall seem to believe we're needed there, sir. We can hardly refuse."

"Of course you can refuse! Damn it, Malfoy, I've never once known you to do a single thing you didn't want to do in the first place! This is all about Harry, isn't it?"

"Not at all, sir. I made my own decision."

"Humph! So you say! And how does young Weasley feel about this?"

"I'm sure I can't tell you that, sir. You may want to check with Potter."

"Disappointed, I suppose. I know _I_ am. Well…far be it from me to get in Snape's way, much less Minerva's, but….Draco."

"Sir?"

"If it doesn't work out, for any reason—any reason at all—you can always come back to the Aurors. Both of you. Door's always open."

"…Thank you, sir. I appreciate that."

He wishes he'd never shagged that French bloke. One mindless month in how many years of monogamy and he _knew_ Harry never forgot it. One more fuck-up on the list.

He wishes they'd left the hideous Ikea couch in Gibraltar—thank Merlin it wouldn't fit in their tiny little drawing room at Hogwarts.

He wishes Grainger and Weasley would get on with it and tie the knot before Molly had a hemorrhage. Set a good example for the rest of them, perhaps. Set Harry's undisciplined brain strolling down the path to commitment…but then again, maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea.

He wishes he could manage to look at Oliver Wood in the face without wanting to flay him alive. How _dare _Harry hook up with someone they both knew?! Unconscionable! Even if it was over, long over, Draco _knew_ Wood hadn't let go of Potter. Draco could see it in Wood's greedy little eyes, the way they followed Harry always, never straying. It had been ages now since Harry dropped him—more than a year after Draco received his double Firsts in Arithmomancy and Transfigurations—and _still _he tracked Harry 'round the room whenever they ran across Wood socially…as if Potter was Wood's personal Golden Snitch or his Boy That Got Away or some such romantic codswallop. At least _Draco_ had the presence of mind to keep his constant gaze covert and mostly hidden. At least _he'd_ had the good manners to confess his unfortunate lapse immediately.

"A mistake. Oliver was—I shouldn't have, Draco—I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I was lonely—I _wasn't_ thinking. Can you…will you…forgive me?"

"Harry!" He was off the settee so fast he raised a cloud of dust from his passing.

"Harry! Of _course_ I forgive you! Nothing to forgive, right? I mean...I mean, I did the same thing with Yves, didn't I? And _you_ didn't hold it against me. Not once—you just. Just. And I love _you_, Harry. _Only you_. Nothing's ever going to change that, love. _Nothing_. Those—those people— they were just…just physical, right? Just bodies. 'Cause we were apart too long. This…what we have…this is _real, _Harry. I don't want to lose this."

"Y-Yes."

"Yes! Yes, it _is, _Harry! You know I'm right, so. So, we should just say no more about it, alright? Not a word. It doesn't matter, so. So. Just forget it. Forget _them_. It's over and _we're_ still together. We'll _always_ be together."

"_Yeah_….Draco, that's. Yes. I-I mean I _want_…that, b-but, Draco?"

"_Hmmm_?"

"Is it _really_? Really that…easy?"

"Merlin, _yes_, love. Do you think people _never_ make mistakes? That they can't be _forgiven_? Do you think I can manage without you in my life _now_? That I ever could? Don't you know how much I—Harry, _Harry_. I don't want to lose you over something so fucking _stupid_, Harry. _I can't._ And that's all this was, wasn't it? _Unless_—"

"_No!_ I'm not doing that again, Draco. No way in Hades am I ever, _ever_ doing that again! Oliver was—Not. Ever. Again. You. You j-just have to trust me, Draco. Please—I never meant—"

"Shhh! _Shhh_. Stop—it's alright, it's _alright,_ Harry. Just stop—I trust you; I _always_ trust you; always will. Don't doubt that, love; don't _ever_ doubt it, hmm? You're all the world to me, Harry. All the world."

*

He_ hated_ that couch. Should've incendio'd it the moment Harry had said he was sorry. Should've incendio'd Wood, too, for taking advantage. For simply _existing_. Dirty _bastard_.


	3. Chapter 3

HP Combustion

Movement 3: Andantino

"Granger, she's beautiful! So tiny!"

"Oh, Draco—you're such a softie at heart. Does Harry know?"

"Shut your trap, Granger. Of _course_ he knows. He's not a _total_ moron."

"…Does he know you want one of your own, Draco?"

In truth, Rose Molly Weasley was red and wrinkled and very ugly. Draco couldn't imagine why such rapid blinking was suddenly necessary—dust in his eyes—maybe he was allergic to something in St. Mungo's? Maybe it was the antiseptic…too many bad memories.

"Are _you_ ever going to have the courage, Draco?" Damn Hermione for being such a fucking brain, not that it took a genius to figure this one out. Witness Pansy, who'd known the moment she'd caught the look on Draco's face when she'd mentioned—flaunted!— _she _was preggers, too. Hag.

Draco wished them both all the best in the world, he did. Truly.

*

Home again, not that this suite was anything like Grimauld or their upscale townhouse. Or the Manor. Too small; no space to retreat. Temporary quarters—though if this worked out like McGonagall claimed it would there'd a bigger suite next autumn.

Snog, shag, cuddle. Mark essays, red ink at the ready. Do rounds and cobble together lesson plans last minute. Why were all the texts so bleeding ancient? Hadn't they even heard of what was actually taught at the university level?

Shag in Hogsmeade for old times' sake. Snog in every alcove in Slytherin on a dare. Take tea and make nice with Minerva and Severus and Flitwick and that overgrown child Hagrid. And Longbottom, who was still an odd duck. Send Grainger and Weasley yet another bouquet of flowers for the baby's triumphant introduction to Burrow-life: roses this time, all colors, with appropriate baby's breath entwined. And posies for the Muggles and Molly and Arthur, too, naturally. Couldn't forget the grandparents. With proper congratulatory formal notes and silver birthing cups, monogrammed. Harry wouldn't know what to do without him, that ass. No proper upbringing. He should be grateful.

"Draco? Bathe with me."

"Um. Give me a minute, Potter."

"No. _Now_." Harry was already naked, pressed up against the back of his desk chair, the heat of his bared skin lapping around Draco like a warm Mediterranean sea.

"Harry—"

"_Draco_…." Oh, Merlin. Not the ear, _not the ear_. He could resist almost anything, but not the ears.

He almost fell to his knees, stumbling out of his chair, but Potter caught him. Didn't let him go till they were both sunk in the sybaritic little sunken tub Hogwarts had seen fit to provide them. And not then, either.

"Ohmygawd, you're _sooo fucking _good, Draco! Tight!tight!tight! Sogoodsogoodso_fuck_—!"

"Give it to me, Potter—_give it!"_

He would've split his skull wide-open on the tile backsplash but Potter's hand was already there, cradling his head. Good reflexes, the bastard. That was all.

*

"Are you okay, Draco?"

"Fine."

"…Just…that's the fourth time today. You should see a doct—"

"Don't need one. M'fine."

"Right."

"Go to sleep, Potter. Big day tomorrow."

"Yeah." Cuddle, snog.

"I like Christmas."

"You like presents."

"I like your PJ's"

"Fuck you, too."

"How's your tummy?"

"Fine. Shut up."

Just a passing bug, then. But he'd been rather wishing. Still, Harry wasn't ready.

*

"Merlin, I can't wait! Sun, sea, sailing—how many more days, Draco?"

"Twelve. What's that Flint child doing with the bread roll? See him?"

"Idiot. There—now it weighs twenty kilos. Let's see him lob _that_."

"You would've."

"Um. Maybe. If I were an idiot."

"You were."

"Potter!"

"Sir?"

"Points, Potter! That's your House, isn't it? Aren't you responsible for disciplining the little sods?"

"Well, _yes_, Headmaster. But I thought you had a certain _fondness _for Slytherins."

Snape glared. Harry smirked. Malfoy hid his grin in his pumpkin juice.

"Let me put it to you this way, then," sneered the Headmaster. "Thirty points from me, _Professor_ Potter, or ten points from _you_? Make your choice."

"_Thirty!_ Godric's Teeth, Severus—he didn't even throw it!"

"Potter!"

Fecking First Years. Still veritable babies, really. Practically swimming in their robes and too totally defenseless. Just like his collection of orphans, the oldest of whom would be Sorted next year, Salazar willing. Though, really, it had been long enough now that they could've had one themselves, perhaps, he and Harry. Not nearly ready for Hogwarts yet, but still…A little boy, with Harry's eyes and his hair. Beautiful. Mum would get off his case; Teddy would adore a younger cousin to play with; Severus would—would be happy for him. Proud.

But, then…but then, Harry might not _ever _be ready. He certainly wasn't now. Not a good time, now. Too much to do, too much to learn, too many childish voices yapping endlessly already. Enough. Draco would deal with that; he had to. Malfoys could, of course. Malfoys could deal with _anything_.

*

"Merlin, you get this every year, Draco."

"I know, I know—you don't have to tell _me_, you ass."

"Maybe it's the cold. You're thin-skinned, that's what."

"Mother keeps the Manor at a comfortable twenty-three degrees Celsius all winter, Potter."

"Still…maybe it's the pine."

"S'not the pine."

"Mistletoe, then?"

An unexpected roll and ungainly scrambling and then something prickly nearly poked out Draco's eye. A green-eyed, troll-mannered Potty-head was suddenly grinning down at Draco, waving some sort of shoddy sheaf of vegetation all about like a fucking madman. It was just too much.

"Bugger off, arsehol! I didn't ask to be mauled!"

"Merlin, touchy!"

"You try keeping Christmas dinner down when all you want to do is hack up your intestines onto Blaise's new Prada loafers, then! See how _you _feel!"

The vegetation was tossed summarily over the side of their bed. Potter instantly assumed That Look.

"Draco."

"No."

"_Draco._"

"Cease and desist, Harry. I get this every year, alright? I know what to do and it's not as though I didn't come prepared this time—brewed the potions myself last week. And took one already. I'm fine, okay? I'm _good_. Leave me alone."

"…You could've asked me."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Here, budge over, then. I'll rub your belly."

"Um. Not so rough, Potter"

"…Alright?"

"Better. Good."

Draco ran a cautious fingertip over the contents of the latest jewelry box from Potter and blinked tiredly at the moonlight shining on the fresh coating of snow visible through his second-storey windows. It was a frigid Christmas season, this one, colder than it had been for years and years. He hated it. He was cold all the time now, except when Harry was touching him.

"Draco?"

"What, Harry?"

"Is it working?"

A polished cast-metal gryphon pendant – platinum, chased with accents of white gold – swung free from delicate links of the same material, the miniscule weight of it nestled now in the indent in his breastbone, warmed by his skin. That had been Potter's most recent present. Draco pressed it harder into his winter paleness to make sure it left a mark and then thoughtfully considered his overall state and condition. Warmish, comfortably so. Relaxed, with the anti-nausea potion flowing through his veins and the headache in abeyance. Safe, with Harry at his back, a living blanket. And perhaps all those protective and healing charms Harry said Pomfrey had doused it with were actually effective since there was nice little tingle happening in his groin that had nothing to do with sicking up…or perhaps it was the soothing feel of a warm hand still gently circling. Whatever—he felt better.

"Yes. I think so."

Harry kissed his ear. Draco eased back over, his post-dinner bleariness burnt away in a lambent silver fire.

"Harry. Come here."

Draco had a jeweler's box of his very own, tucked deep in the inner pocket of his second-best smoking jacket, left over from last Christmas. Hadn't told Potter about it. Wasn't planning on it, either. It would keep.

*

"Draco, I really never thought I'd be placed in the position to have to say this, and not to _you_ of all people, given that you were a Prefect, but—"

"Minerva."

"You really _must_ take a firmer hand with your Firsties. They're not babies, Draco. And you know better than to indulge them. They must learn _somehow_—"

"Yes, I know, I'm sorry—"

"They'll run rough-shod over you, Draco—they already have. And it's not as though you don't know how to handle these situations, Draco. I observed you most carefully all of last year, you know. I have every faith in your abilities, understand?"

"Yes, of course. Thank you, Minerva. I'm just— I just."

"Draco…is there something…well, is there anything you need to speak to me about, dear?"

"No. No, nothing. Everything's fine."

"Everything is well between you and Harry?"

"Yes, of course, Minerva! I hardly think that should even be pertinent to this discussion!"

"Er, of course. My apologies, but…well, I'm still glad to hear it. But."

"Yes?"

"You will be sure to pay closer attention, Draco? Do what is necessary to keep them in line?"

"Of course, Minerva."

"Very well. I shall leave it to you, then. And…Draco."

A white-blonde brow cocked up in a paler than normal face. Really, Minerva decided, the boy didn't look very well.

"Come to me should you need to. Please. You know I only want what's best for you two—always. But the older students really shouldn't have to suffer through these childish displays, Draco, and you must put a stop to it. It's beyond disruptive."

"Yes, Minerva. I will. And again, I _am_ sorry. Please be assured you won't have any need to speak to me of this in the future."


	4. Chapter 4

Movement 4: Moderato espressivo, Part 1

Cuddle, snog, shag. At every opportunity. If the Manor grounds had been frigid, Hogwarts was bloody Arctic. Draco transfigured every blanket they owned into cashmere-jacketed goosedown one evening just to bear it. He and Harry bundled up like Inuits just to walk to the greenhouses. Recreational flying was completely out of the question. They would've fallen off their brooms and shattered like popsicles on the frozen ground.

January trickled into February with barely a pause. Harry felt different somehow. Draco noticed this first with the merest smidge of concern. He knew his Harry and there were changes. Tiny differences that only blind fingertips could find, safe behind the curtains of their bed. Weight gained and lost for no apparent reason, ounces here and there. Sleep patterns slightly altered; a hint of tetchiness that was a far cry from Harry's slow-to-burn temper. Fortunately, the bathtub was larger in the new rooms, though just as luxurious, and Draco took every opportunity available to carefully examine his…significant other..for possible harm or foul.

Lovely term, that. 'Significant other'. Dishwater when compared to the many other terms available to describe the one person most important in all the world, but that was the one currently _en vogue_…and the one Potter used when he introduced Draco to acquaintances.

Other than the occasional guest lecturer, there was very little to distract them. Hermione was up the duff again. Draco supposed she'd likely spend the next decade in that state and shuddered at the thought. He prayed all the hormones wouldn't disrupt her brain functions, as they had with Pans, who had literally transformed into something resembling an organic brood mare. 'Whole grain' this and 'raw milk' that, and all additives strictly forbidden and 'shouldn't you be eating more greens, Draco?' He was about ready to strangle her.

Thankfully, Pans and Blaise had decamped to Italy for the remainder of the winter, taking Pans's new-found obsession with all things 'natural' with them; he and Harry were too run off their feet with the new semester's rigours to even consider popping up to London for weekends to see friends or catch up with old Auror contacts, and their usual frantic Quidditch-cum-social schedule had been reduced to the semi-_ad hoc_ local games Ye Olde Hogsmeade Reg'lars roistered up, weather permitting. Which it did _not_, this February. Not that Draco minded…he, too, felt oddly off-kilter, as if his annual Christmas ague had never quite surrendered its loathsome grip.

But it was Harry who was the concern. Harry, who was always fit as a fiddle; Harry, who fainted with utterly no warning whatsoever on the tenth of February—one second up, the next second down and Draco had to dive (barely, and by the skin of his teeth) across the fucking study to catch him before he knocked himself even more senseless and bloody on the edge of the built-in bookcase. Madame Pomfrey had never moved so fast in her life. Perhaps it was the unusual timbre resounding in Draco's generally calm, even tenor when he called thru' the Floo. Perhaps it was the fact that it was _Harry Potter_ fainting.

The dinner-hour found him teetering on the edge of one of the excessively uncomfortable chairs Pomfrey kept available for visitors, his eyes dry and gritty from hours of watching Potter's every passing expression all too carefully. All the other staff had gone down to the Great Hall for their meal and the Infirmary was deserted, an echoing tiled Hell.

Was it a curse? From Voldemort? From Aunt Belletrix? A Horcrux? Something left over from the war?

Draco fretted and clenched and chewed his meticulously-kept nails to the quick, stationed immoveable by Harry's bedside for the long haul.

Was it poison? A hex? A cancer? Something Muggle? His orphans were all sick or recovering from something that had seeped over from the Muggle world. But they were all on the mend, too, so it was nothing serious, after all.

But this was Harry. Harry, who'd been subjected to enough nastiness for the lifetimes of an entire coven! What if it were something…deadly? Incurable? Undetectable and foul? Would he lose Harry to this…this unknown threat when they had all their lives still ahead of them? Would he lose everything, everything that had any meaning? What could he do? Who could he ask? Severus, Hermione? Pomfrey? His mother? What could _they_ do? There had to be experts somewhere, right? People who knew—

Someone had to know, just…_someone_. There had to be a cure, a solution, because Harry couldn't die; Harry couldn't be ill; Harry didn't just pass out with no provocation. Not Harry Potter. That wasn't _his_ Harry there in the narrow white bed and this was simply a silly nightmare, he knew that, but—

What could be done? What could _he_ do? How to make it stop? His head, spinning, his heart, quaking and thudding so hard Draco's slim body shook with it—his breathing, too rapid, not enough; there wasn't enough of it—

When Draco pried his heavy eyelids open again, it was to greet a brilliantly sunny mid-winter morning flooding in through the unclosed curtains—and a sense of gnawing anxiety achingly reminiscent of those excruciating months during which the Dark Lord had taken over his home, his family, his _life_. He felt half-consumed, bitten away by boggarts—and then there was swimming before his bleary morning eyes bleeding Harry Potter, Mister Fucking Indestructible, innocently gazing at him from the next bed over. Draco practically levitated himself from the cot he'd somehow ended up in and propelled his body across that unbearable space _apart_.

"Drac—"

"_Harry!_"

"Well, then, Harry, Draco. Good morning. How do you both _feel_?"

Madame's comfortable bulk was there, insinuating itself between Draco and Potter's bed, and her knowing eyes were already sizing them both up with professional skill. Draco felt the sizzle of a diagnostic charm bottoming out at the frigid space where his bare feet met the cold tile and wondered very briefly whether he'd ever be forgiven for physically wrestling Poppy out of the godsdamned way.

"Good, I suppose." Harry answered with little or no curiosity as to his changed sleeping arrangements and then took his good old time stretching. Yawning widely and smacking his lips, as if all the world were his personal oyster and this was nothing more than a normal Saturday morning.

"Hungry."

"Tired," Draco murmured, peeping around the swathes of starched uniform and apron for glimpses of Potter.

"So…what happened?" Harry seemed only mildly interested in whatever might have caused his latest mishap, which only served to instantly incense his 'significant other' to a state of near-maniac anger—well seasoned with dollops of sick anxiety. How could Poppy just stand there? What is something were still very _wrong?!_

Pomfrey must have moved him after he fell asleep, for which Draco heartily, though silently, thanked her, but his back and shoulders still ached from hours spent in the folding metal Muggle-like contraption. And his fucking stomach had climbed up his throat and lodged there, maliciously. He was slower-than-normal, but still edging agilely past Madame, zeroing in on his target of Potter. This was a skill he'd had years to perfect.

"You fucking _fell down_, Potter! Don't you even _remember!?"_

At least his voice could still reach. Sounded croaky, though; not like him—

"Now, _Draco_—" Poppy tutted at his language but mercifully she got out of the way. Draco was on his crampy knees by Potter's bedside in the blink of an eye, hands already gripping Harry's dear shoulders, sinking gratefully into Potter's blessedly warm skin.

"Are—are you_ alright, _Harry?"

Malfoy's grey-eyed glare was a blinding searchlight, illuminating every Pottery detail. It was a high-powered microscope, professional-grade omniculars and an aura-probing surgical steel scalpel, all wrapped into one exceptionally potent and well-used 'Potter-sensing' tool. He _knew_—

He _knew_ his Harry, inside and out, backwards and forwards and if there was anything _wrong_, anything at all, he would find it, winnow it out and destroy it—

And Harry—Harry _looked_ fine. Harry _was_ fine. Really. Absolutely perfect. Just fucking _spiffing_, the wanker.

"Draco?"

"Oh, Harry's perfectly well, Draco—pressure, pulse, magic all good; no worries. I think it may have been simply a slight vitamin deficiency, but the potions have already take care of that. Really, _you're_ more of a concern, dear boy. I found you on the floor, you know, out cold. I'd like to have you stay for a few more minutes and—"

"Draco…?"

Draco didn't bother to listen to the rest of Poppy's blathering about remaining behind in the Infirmary and having a bit of routine check-up. It was entirely possible that Draco would have to _hurt_ Potter for daring to be so bloody relaxed and well-rested and—and _perfectly well_ this morning. _Entirely possible._

"Draco, what's wrong? What _happened_ last night? Why did _you_ pass out?"

Malfoy gritted his even white teeth and gave his 'significant other' a preemptory shake. It was so friggin' marvelous that Harry was finally paying attention, but that really didn't matter _now_. Potter blinked back at him, all butter-wouldn't-melt and gee-what's-going-here?, which proved to be even more infuriating, as if _that _were conceivable.

"Draco! Answer me! _Are you alright?_ You didn't hit your head catching me or anything, did you?"

Yes, it was nearly one hundred-twenty percent _probable_ he'd have Potter pressed up against the door of their rooms in approximately thirty minutes, Merlin willing, and, within thirty seconds of that, naked as a new-borne babe and fucking _spread_. And if Potter so much as eeped or bleated one bloody negative syllable about Draco's now highly anticipated plans of nearly immediate lewd and lascivious behavior, he'd cuff the git to their four-poster and repeatedly reduce him to speechless mush till he passed out _again_. And again and again. And then _keep him there_, hog-tied and wholly ravageable, till _he_, Draco Malfoy, was satisfied there was nothing amiss with his fucking Boy Wonder.

"Poppy—Poppy, _please_!"

Potter was in the midst of attempting to politely interrupt the still happily droning-on staff healer, likely for the purpose of dragging her actual professional attention back to the wild-eyed scion of the Malfoy family currently shaking his head back-and-forth slowly at him in some form of incomprehensible, non-verbal fit.

Draco paid Harry's sudden restiveness and flapping hands no mind. His brain had abruptly departed the Infirmary for the much more comfortable and joyful environs of their bed chamber several seconds before, sweeping the concept of a 'perfectly fine', hale-and-hearty Potter right along with it. He could practically taste it: his cock in Harry's ass, his 'significant other' willing and hard and begging to be reamed even harder with every single blasted stroke.

His latest plan-of-action might possibly consume the remainder of the weekend, not including time set aside for meals and unavoidable paper-grading. Draco could only hope.

But it was only to begin_ after_ he'd grilled Madame on all the minor and major medical details of Potter's atypical black-out session and _after_ he'd stuffed some blasted nutritional padding into them both. _And _skived off the bleeding physical Madame was busily planning. First things _first_.

Fortunately for Malfoy's still rather shaken equilibrium, Potter could still be completely side-tracked with a simple snog.

"Draco! Harry! Do stop that right now—_do!_" Madame Pomfrey screeched, but neither of the active participants paid her any mind.

*


	5. Chapter 5

HP THEOREM COMBUSTION

Movement 4: Moderato espressivo, Part 2

Easter week vac found them in London. Dean and Seamus had split up for possibly the seventeenth time since graduation from Hogwarts – this was now a regular and nearly biannual occurrence as far as Draco was concerned, and a plague and a pox that he just had to get through. For Harry Potter, the Boy Who Actually Listened, was everyone's favorite Gryffindor Agony Aunt on tap and while Draco normally would've been right there with him, _hmm-mmm_'ing and nodding in faux sympathy and consuming shot for shot, single-malt for lager, at every Wizard pub and Muggle club and mixed heinous whathaveyou establishments Finnegan and Co. insisted on dragging them to, this time he simply didn't feel up to it. Thus, there was no literal 'Malfoy voice of calm reason' to keep Potter toeing the line and staying on this side of utter berkdom when Finnegan pleaded with his Griffish pals to go paint the town for the umpteenth time in as many days.

Draco was well aware Finnegan acknowledged no reasonable limits when it came to excessive and unnecessary emoting as well as the alcoholic excesses that inevitably accompanied it, and further, epitomized 'Trouble' incarnate –no wonder poor Dean got so brassed off with the bugger—and that it was more than likely Harry would stumble in totally arse-faced sometime after two a.m., but he just couldn't seem to muster up enough ready ire to bitch about this on his usual professional level. Harry was a big boy; Draco could trust him; there were Muggle taxis and the Knight Bus; Potter could take care of himself for once.

_With_ a high-level undetectable tracking charm set the moment Potter bounded off on the heels of the Finnegan bloke _and_ Dobby at hand if necessary for presumably after-hours, house-elf-assisted Apparation-of-Sodden-Master. Of course, Draco was _not_ a bleeding moron, nor was he incapable of watching out for his own, unlike _some_ he could mention. Even at quarter-speed.

Which left him alone in the flat, abandoned on the evil Ikea sofa Potter was so fond of, rapidly brewing up a nasty, putrid temper, exacerbated by continued minor woes as the evening wore on.

There was nothing good on the telly. He'd watched all the dee-vee-dees twice already. None of _his_ friends knew he was in town and he didn't feel like flooing them, either. He couldn't blame Dean for sloughing off Finnegan yet again—Finnegan was a royal pain-in-the-ass and grabby with it. Hopefully, he knew enough now to keep his hands to himself when it came to Harry. But Wood…Wood was likely lurking out there somewhere, just waiting to pounce on Draco's Harry.

Wood was a menace; Draco would never trust him. And Draco felt like hammered shite, which wasn't _fair_, not at all, and maybe he _should _see a Healer, or at least Madame Pomfrey, on the QT when they returned to Hogwarts on Monday. He wanted to go home, he did, but he _was _home, rather. And London was supposedly marginally warmer than Hogwarts this spring but then that was immaterial if he hadn't the energy to venture outside more once an effing day. He should be enjoying himself, temporarily released from minding Other People's Spawn, and they should be out-and-about all hours together as opposed to this dreary malingering and Potter's staggering ineptness at reading between Draco's lines. If Potter had stayed in, they could've play Charmed Scrabble and he could've trounced him. Or Snap; he always won Snap. Or Megolopoly, and he could've battled Potter to the death over the territory gained by miniature plastic Assyrian armies. If Potter came back early, Draco might be arsed to eat a bite of something. If Potter didn't have the courtesy to at least check in at some point and assure himself as to Draco's continued existence, despite his lack of nosh and near-terminal boredom, Draco might be forced to do something very drastic indeed. Where _was _that fool house-elf when one required him?

And where _was _Harry?

"Mum! Oi! _Mum!"_

"Darling! You look awful! What are you doing home on so late on a Friday evening? I was just going to leave a message on the Floo Service."

"Well, you startled me—of course I look awful! I'm fine! _What_ message?"

"Brunch, dear one. Tomorrow, the usual place and time. We'll have an early Easter Sunday, how's that?"

"Oh…lovely. Mum, I—"

"Where's Harry, darling?"

"…Out."

"Out where, dear? Don't you usually accompany him?"

"Mum! Harry's perfectly capable of going out without an escort—"

"And why are you laying about like that, Draco? You look half-dead. Do you still not feel well?"

"I'm _fine_, Mother! It's past ten on a weeknight—I'm a tad knackered from habit. Perfectly understandable, I assure you. I'm used to school hours, not traipsing about like a ruddy teenager!"

"I see. And I am to assume our dearest Harry is _not_ gutted, then? Despite his equally advanced age and equivalent decrepitude? He is chipper, bright-eyed and lively? And blithely in absentia?"

"Mother. I've just had a touch of the flu, Mother, though I am perfectly healthy, now. Harry hasn't had it and his friends were quite insistent they see him this evening. We're planning to be occupied with you and Aunt Andromeda and Teddy tomorrow _and_ the next day and then we're back to the circus. This is his last chance for a bit, so he's taking advantage of it. And that's _all_. End of story. Happy now?"

"Odd. Harry doesn't strike me as a man who would leave his recently ill significant other behind for the opportunity to 'party hardy' with his mates. You haven't rowed, have you? Draco?"

"No! For the last time, it's nothing like that! I am exceedingly fit—just a little tired, nothing more—and Potter has my whole-hearted blessing on his excursion into depravity. And mind you, Mother, he did _not _willingly 'leave me behind'. I practically tossed him out the door, for your information. He's a bloody bother and a pest."

"Of course, dear one. As you say, then. By the bye, that sofa is plainly awful—I don't know why you insist on keeping it. Now, about Sunday—do you think if we all trotted off to one of those Muggle churches and played 'Families' Harry might be inspired? Teddy could wear one those darling sets of rabbit ears the Weasley's have in their shop window and you know how Harry _adores_ children—"

"_W-What?!_ Mum! Would you cease with the incessant scheming this _instant_? Harry never went to any of those bloody Muggle services—those double-damned Dursleys never allowed it! And Easter hols is _not_ a particularly _romantic_ date on the Gregorian calendar, Mum—Merlin's Beard, this is Potter you're speaking of! He's not got a soppy bone in his whole blasted body!"

*

Draco must have dozed, even though the sofa-from-the-depths-of-Hades made such things as naps excruciating. He'd sipped some conjured chamomile tea at about eleven and the last of the cream biscuits and Huntsman at half-twelve. The telly was set to a Muggle timer, and perhaps it was the drabble of sonorous BBC voices updating him with supremely unimportant news items at midnight that sent Draco finally into the land of Nod. It was a pregnant silence that woke him – that, the quiet crack of Apparation in the foyer and a stifled cough.

"Harry?"

Of course it was Potter. No one else could get in but emergency Wizarding personnel. Draco blinked and sat up, the fleece bunching down about his midriff, and looked to the dimly lit hallway for Harry's backlit profile.

"Hey. How are you feeling?"

Harry strolled in, carrying a whiff of cold air with him. He was flushed in the half-light and Draco felt his lips tighten under Harry's even as he welcomed the familiar buss.

"Top notch. How was Finnegan? Still a tosser?"

Potter shoved Draco's legs farther back on the wide sofa and dropped himself in an ungainly heap of muffled Versace outerwear on the middle cushion.

"Same old, same old. Puts the dumbass in dysfunctional, does our little Seamus. You didn't miss a thing, believe me."

"You were late tonight."

"Mmm. Lumos."

A quick hand grabbed at Draco's chin, snagging it and turning his shadowed face towards Harry and the subtle brightening of the late-night drawing-room gloom. The wafts of sandlewood-scented candles revealed that not all of the dark lights remaining there were mere tricks of the eye. Potter's brows fell into the all-too-familiar line of worry. He assumed The Look. This only ticked Draco off further. He had much to be annoyed with this evening.

"Did you eat anything, Draco?"

"Of course I did! I'm not helpless, Potter!"

The Look galvanized Draco into sitting up completely, shrugging off Potter's fingers and generally gathering himself together a bit more firmly, feet planted once again on the carpeted floor. He was perfectly capable of maintaining his composure, even at criminal hours of the early morning and even if Harry smelt of a brewery. Several breweries and was that perfume?

"Like what?"

"Biscuits and tea, Potter! Cheese! And some veg soup, earlier. What of it?"

"We don't have any soup."

"I got take-out."

"You didn't leave the flat, Draco."

"Checking up me, then? Dobby scurried and picked it up."

"Don't think so. Dobby spent the evening shadowing yours truly, Draco. You're not the only one who can cast a decent tracking spell."

"Leave off! What does it matter what I ate or didn't? I don't feel well, Potter, so of course I have no appetite!"

"So why lie?"

"I'm not lying! I had soup this afternoon when Mum and I met at Harrod's. Their Wizarding café is more than adequate!"

"And then you came home and collapsed on the sofa, Draco. You haven't moved a bloody inch since."

"So what if I did? I'm telling you, Potter, I'm off-colour here! A few more days of rest and no _bother_ and I'll be right as rain!"

"With your Aunt Andy's home-brewed potions to assist that, Draco? Or OTC's when you think I won't notice? Or is the esteemed Severus keeping you perpetually stocked up with anti-nausea? I'm staggered you don't have a fucking dependency already. Poppy's going to start piss-testing you soon."

"Oh, Salazar's Balls, Potter! Shut up about it—it's nothing new!"

"What's _new_ is that your annual Christmas flu has dragged on for four solid months, Malfoy. I think I have the right to check up on how you're sorting it."

The hand that had pinched Draco's chin earlier was back, sliding into position at Malfoy's nape. Draco shivered at the cold of the wind-chapped fingers, tensed at the stiffness of the stilly held anger they communicated. He sat up straighter in self-defense.

"I _am_ sorting it, Potter." His voice was quiet and dangerous, but then Potter was making him feel that way, so Potter could lump it.

"I plan to see Poppy as soon as we get back and if I need to, I'll go on to St. Mungo's. I'm not in any way disregarding this, I assure you."

"You should have done that three months ago, Draco. And I should've made you."

Finally, finally, the hand at his nape had relaxed. Draco suppressed another shiver when Harry's short fingernails brushed against the base of his skull, the back of one ear lobe, the tense cords of tendon that kept his jawbone rigidly set forward.

"That's neither here nor there, Harry. Three months ago this could have been simply a chill left over from the holidays. Or something new, scuppering me when I was already half-arsed. You know as well as I it's been a bad year for the flu—half the First and Second Years ended up in the Infirmary within a week of term starting."

There. He sounded very reasonable. Plus, he had a game plan, which was more than he'd had when the sofa swallowed him entirely earlier. Harry should be satisfied with him and maybe they could actually move bedwards. If nothing else, Draco wanted his nightly cuddle. He was fucking exhausted.

"I know." Potter's voice was very soft. "And I know Poppy ran some scans on you when you weren't looking."

"Potter!"

"And I know both Minerva and Severus are quite concerned, not to mention your mother, Draco."

"See here—!"

"_And_ Pansy_ and_ Blaise _and_, believe it or not, Seamus. Draco."

"Potter, for. The. Last. Time—_what the fuck is that thing in your ear, Harry?!"_

"Like it?"

The quicksilver grin that Draco would absolutely always die for flashed as Harry angled his head to show off the latest tiny imperfection to mar his fit body.

"What the _fuck_? When did you get that, Harry? What the fuck were you _doing_ with that sod Finnegan?"

"Tonight. Well…I had the piercing done tonight; I got the stud two days ago. Seamus got his done tonight, too."

Draco didn't even want to conceive of _that_ might mean. That—that—whatever Harry had just uttered made no sense whatsoever.

"Perfectly safe, I assure you. No worries about blood poisoning—it's platinum."

"_I_," Draco's voice squeaked and broke on the single syllable. "I wasn't actually concerned about any buggering blood poisoning, Harry. Just—just what made you go and do _that_?"

"Dean's got one, too. Theirs are rubies. I got us plain studs, Draco, since I figured you'd throw a friggin' hissy if your earlobe sparkled."

"…!"

Which rendered Draco effectively speechless. A tiny Wizarding Tiffany's box materialized mid-air and then plonked unceremoniously onto his blanketed lap. Considerably more livid than he'd been in absolute eons, Draco wrenched it open, nearly parting the fragile hinge altogether. A single silvery-white earring was contained within, nestled in burgeoning velvet bunting and clearly one of a pair.

"It's a choice, Draco."

Potter plastered himself against Draco's ribcage, anchoring an arm around him, black head bent over the unexpected offering. Draco caught the peep of green eyes as they glanced up ever so briefly, assessing and unreadable.

"I don't know if you quite remember what that _is _at this point, so I'm giving you one."

Potter cleared his throat softly and touched the earring with the tip of one forefinger. Malfoy's stomach dropped a full league below standard altitude, a physical impossibility.

"Several."

Draco stared unseeing at his latest piece of trophy jewelry from Potter and wondered why his lap had gone so totally blurry from one blink to the next. Was this a pre-emptive kiss-off, then? The lead-in to a sea change that he categorically did not want and could not handle? Or was it some sort of incomprehensible Pottery ultimatum? A double-or-nothing challenge that he might lose from sheer inertia?

All he knew for certain was that there had not been pain like this for a very long time.


	6. Chapter 6

**HP Theorem Combustion**

_Movement 5: Accelerando_

It took Malfoy precious seconds to muster up the much-needed words of inquiry, to shape 'shock', to regulate 'demand' into verbage. In the end the words simply weren't uttered. He'd no air in his lungs free to do so; his lungs caught in a vice of his own making. He swung his searing gaze up to confront Harry's brilliantly green one mutely and hoped like hell he was in the process of haring off down completely the wrong path. He'd done it before, hadn't he; that was all it was this time, too, right? Right? He'd simply misunderstood?

Potter glared at him, black brows cocked like the arches on the War Monument, taking in the now paper-white hue of Malfoy's skin, the glitter disarmingly apparent in grey eyes that could reflect any shade of wind and distant water and foggy Highlands morning. He noted the bottom lip savaged, the quick clench of fist around fleecy fabric and velvet-sheathed metal shell, the thickly laid tension carried like a mantle across gladiator's shoulders. There was Malfoy, defiant—that gormless, spineless prat of a coward who never said fuck all when it mattered and only used his mouth for the purposes of teasing and pleasure—

"You. Stupid. Fuck! Like that's a _threat_! As if! Bloody hell, Draco—what the _fuck_ did you think I was _saying_?" Harry spat and sputtered, fingers stiffening again in a great wave of ire.

There was not one note of grace in Malfoy's form that Harry did not love with every chord and responsive aleatory in his being. Not one – not even the silent assumptions and half-stitched scars that caused him far more trouble than his own. And without hesitation he gathered his lover – that walloping great git; that foolish man, who tried him and tested him and was effing impervious to all the things Harry _knew _he'd been saying over and over, for fucking more years than was even reasonable! – to him and against in a sweep of a boundless embrace, one that wrapped Draco in tight arms and clutching fingers and attempted what words _never_ seemed to manage well enough or for long enough; broad palms sliding hard and insistent across shock-chilled skin taunted by winter's cold and too-well-established distance; rough fingertips tenderly stroking, petting their mutual comfort back to a certain heated solidarity; exclaiming mouth full of unspoken words of adoration parted sweetly and stilled against his lover's throbbing temple. There were not words enough, the poet was right—nor time enough, nor even appropriate Malfoy-approved gestures available he could use to staunch these invisible wounds of Draco's, these still-weeping weals.

And this was not a 'hug'—not, not _at all_. Nothing so girly. This was Harry knocking off a few of the sharp edges and pushing down the hedgehog prickles and Malfoy easing his ruffled pinfeathers back into proper place and lightening up on the raptor's talons that would viciously break skin if he allowed them their way and for fuck's sake he didn't want to do that and risk making it _worse_.

The tiny box tumbled softly out of Draco's limp grasp while he was smoothed and petted and made much of, lost momentarily to the folds of his lap-blanket.

"You utter prat!" Harry muttered, still angry, still sad. Still in love. "I can't believe you! Get the fuck over here, Draco—stupid, sodding arsewipe; you never _think_, do you? Draco, Draco—"

Malfoy went deeper into the non-hug– stiffly, his very posture still starched up with terrifying might-have-been's – and finally he allowed one tremorous hand to lower slowly onto the small of Potter's back. His lint-white hair shifted and slid forward as he brought his head down with glacial slowness, pointy chin coming to rest carefully, tentatively, on the juncture where Harry's spine met his corded neck. Longish black hair whuffled impatiently into Draco's flared nostrils; there was that familiar shampoo and scent – his; theirs. Under his palm was the flex of Harry's lean waist as he tugged Malfoy ever closer, his chest matched rib to rib with Draco's, his leftover black-and-tan huff of mingled exasperation and affection a warming zephyr echoing across Draco's furrowed brow.

"Merlin's Teeth, Draco! You _have_ to stop doing that!"

Draco sighed in resignation; he knew that full well, he did. Lax in the strong embrace of Potter, he knew that he did, and he must, and truly he was trying, but…but it was so easy still to tear his world away, to replace it with the stuff of every adolescent nightmare. And his defenses were just not that good.

"Come on, let's get you to bed. You're freezing! And we're _talking_, Malfoy, actually talking about this crap this time—I'm not letting you slide on this, you know. Come on, up! Dobby!"

Draco was hauled bodily away from the cursed Ikea, floppy and sluggish with muscles tightened by unforgiving springs and too long without a fire in the grate, and guided up the dimly lit staircase by a Potter still barking out quiet orders to their bug-eyed housemate.

"Master Harry Potter! What can Dobby be doing to hel—?"

"Whiskey, Dobby! Straight up and some strong, sweet tea, a potful. Master Draco has had a of a shock here because he's an amazingly dense half-wit —oh, and hey, find some chocolate, Dobby, would you? There's Cadbury's in my coat pocket—left front. Two bars. Bring 'em up."

Malfoy was thrust through the bedroom door—"Lumos!" Harry ordered; "Right over there, then; thanks so much, Dobby. You can go straight to bed now or whatever it is—oh! Bring that confounded Tiffany's box up, too—the little one; yes, that's the one!" – stripped of all the strangling, bunching fabric he'd accumulated over the lonely hours in an effort to keep warm and bustled forcefully into their bed.

"Drink _up_, you fuckwit; good!"

A mug was jammed to Malfoy's pallid lips; he opened his mouth, took a steaming swallow and felt Glenfidditch-infused black tea plummet straight to his roiling stomach, Fiendfyre and Acadian honey and smoking peat moss mixed. The jeweler's box was back to haunt him, hovering just off starboard, and Draco ignored it one moment and the next wondered vaguely if having a hole punched through his earlobe would prove to be awfully painful.

"Harry—"

"Shut _up_! Get the rest of that down you—do it now before I pummel you, you fecking berk! What in the Seven Circles goes through your bottle-blonde brain, Draco? Do you even _know!?" _

"Potter! I'm not an invalid! I can hold it myself, thanks ever so!"

"Right, then. See you do, Malfoy. You're not so hot on the 'following orders' bit, are you?"

"You don't need to be shouting them! I can hear perfectly well!"

"I wouldn't have to be shouting if you weren't such an enormous arse, Malfoy! Get that all down you and shut the fuck up! _I'm_ the one talking!"

"—Harry! Don't be angry!"

"Then don't make me, saphead!"

"Harry…Harry, I'm _sorry_. I didn't mean to; I don't even know what—but you just…you always."

"I always _what?_ No, don't even start. Eat this up, right away. And give me that; you're slopping."

Draco snagged the Tiffany's with his free hand before Potter took it away too in his temper and stuffed it childishly under his share of the pillow mound, now well more than half-way back to outright sulking.

"Git! Wanker!" Harry was muttering darkly, finally getting 'round to stripping off his own clothes; they went on the floor, as always, but this was not the time to complain of that.

Draco wasn't sure _what_ this was the time for…except perhaps a Domesday reckoning and that scared him shiteless and though the tea and chocolate were bucking him up, he didn't think he was ever going to ready to dissect the troubles of their relationship at three in the a.m., fuck-you-very-much.

"Harry," he mumbled, masticating slowly, sweeping his tongue around to make sure his teeth were clean when he showed them. "Can we talk in the morning? I-I'll feel better then, with some sleep—"

"No! Like you're going to sleep with this—this utter crap bollixing up your tiny little mind! Eat your chocolate, Malfoy, and keep your trap politely shut till you're done! _I'm_ the one talking now."

"Can you at least turn off the lights, Harry? They're killing me; I've got the headache—"

"No. I want to see you." But Harry did dim them and one by one most of the floating candles winked out, leaving a golden glow that just illuminated their small circle of unhappy wakefulness. Malfoy felt better, somehow, though he couldn't have necessarily defined why that was.

With one last hard swallow he was done, chocolate gone, wrapper flicked summarily to the floor. Harry gave him the pottery mug again and he took a tiny sip of Harry's should-be-patented tea tonic, meek as a babe under Harry's stern glare but much less shaky withal.

"Ok, then. Let's get to it, Draco. Why in Hades would you even think that?"

'That' had no need to be spoken of aloud; Draco knew perfectly well what 'that' meant. He had thought 'that' several times over the years they'd spent together and not once had he been even remotely correct, thank Merlin. Which was not to say that the occasion might arise in which he would think 'that' again. It didn't take much—Wood, for example.

Maybe this 'that' was just a form of self-penance, brought on by feeling foul and the worries attendant.

"…Perhaps because you just said Finnegan had _his_ done, whatever that means, and you're always the one he Floos when this happens, or maybe it was because you just up and _left _

me –"

Oh, Salazar's Eyeball's! Could that actually be him, using that tone with Harry? Crucio him now for whining; put him out of his misery—oh, please!

"Malfoy, Malfoy, Malfoy. _Draco._ Let's start again, shall we?"

Draco hated it when Harry sounded like Severus. It made him feel very small.

"Look at the facts, Draco. I did _not_ leave you. I went out with Seamus; you knew exactly where we were at all times. You _said_ to go. We drank heavily, but I'm not particularly soused, am I? I did not stumble home drunk and ill-mannered—I soberly and thoughtfully brought you home an expensive present even though you've barely spoken to me all week, and then told you right out it's one of a _pair_. Which means two, Malfoy, as in one for you and one for me. I'm wearing one—even if you were as blind as you act sometimes, you could still figure that out with your bloody fingers! And the other one's yours to wear _if_ you want to wear it—notice, _please_, that I'm not demanding—"

"Harry…"

"_And_ I was giving you a choice about that, Draco, and a lot of other things, too, 'cause I don't want you to feel pressured and I keep thinking there's something buggering you that you just won't tell me about and it eats me alive, you arse; when you do this; it _hurts_—"

"Harry—when have I—when have we _ever_ used—"

"And there's something _wrong_ with you, Draco. You're ill and Poppy says she can't figure it out and you don't seem to be doing a bloody fucking thing about it and you won't talk to me or even _Severus_ and your poor mother's half out of her mind with anxiety about it all and if _you_ don't_ do_ something, _I will—"_

"How can I _say_ it? I don't even know how to say it!"

Draco was shouting back at Harry—no, not shouting; he hadn't the energy to be shouting.

"Even if you hate me for it, Draco, I _will_. I don't care anymore about tiptoeing around your oversized ego; you're a bloody inconsiderate bastard for hiding stuff from me and I _hate_ you and I _love_ you—"

"Oh, _please_, Harry!" Draco whimpered. "Stop it! Stop it, alright!?"

"Fucking _wanker!_ Just have the fucking courtesy to tell me _what's going on!"_

Gape-mouthed, Draco visibly struggled to do just that and Potter finally, _finally_ sucked in a calming breath and stopped the awful lava flow of accusation in its tracks.

"Oh, dear lord, I'm _sorry_, Draco—you don't feel well, do you, and here I am, making it all _worse_. Look. _Look._ Just go to sleep now—we'll deal with all this in the morning."

"I love you, Harry." There; he did have a voice, after all. Not much of one, true, but enough.

"I love you but I _can't_—we don't use _words_, do we, Harry? Never did—couldn't. I can't even. So…I don't know how, Harry. I don't know _how_, or what to do; I just_ love_ you, Harry, so don't—"

_Don't._

And Potter mercifully shut Malfoy's useless mouth with a kiss.


	7. Chapter 7

HP THEOREM COMBUSTION

MOVEMENT 6: LENTE

Harry held him and he held Harry, both murmuring desultorily, the words they used safe, acceptable, intermittent and mostly comprised of exclamations: "There!" and "Yes!" and "Like _that_…ahfuck, Draco!" and it was just a simple wank job between them first but it felt smashing, just smashing. It was _them_ again. Like the early days, when they ducked into nasty holes in the walls to play games just like this and it was all the better for being hidden.

He hid, too, the nausea that still crept around the edges of his midsection; the lightning frizzles of nerve pain that played hell to his balance.

All hidden, absolutely everything crucial inside Draco Malfoy submerged and camouflaged, as it was in the very beginning, when he thought and thought furiously every second of every day about Potter, Harry, and kept his lips sealed tight against the tide of pointless words. Words were Potter's bailiwick, not Malfoy's, although Malfoys could talk and talk and spin worlds out of glittering words. But the words that _mattered_—they were always Harry's.

"I wanted," Harry grunted and sighed, shifting into Draco's shoulder, a lolloping wave of his forefinger taking care of clean-up,"…to give you-_ah!forfuck'ssake,youberk,stoptouchingit!-_something—something you could wear all the time, Draco. Ngh. Um. This good?"

"Mmm-hmm. Stay right there, Potter. Don't squirm or I won't be responsible."

"So…so, yeah, that's why the earring, right?"

"Alright."

"'S'nice. It's small and it's elegant and it won't get in the way of your robes or anything. Goes with stuff. But… you don't have to."

"I know."

"Promise that's sorted?"

"Promise. Harry Potter is providing a choice in the matter. Duly acknowledged. Just take me to someone who'll ensure it doesn't hurt when my earlobe is permanently disfigured."

"Done. Poppy can do it on Monday."

"You _are _joking, aren't you?"

"No."

Potter smirked and pinched him.

Languorous and slow, a sloth on the make, Malfoy swarmed over Potter, hands and mouth still moving even after they'd completed their ritual snog, shag and cudde—even after they'd both downed quick swallows of the mineral water from the pitcher Dobby had left them and actively settled themselves to sleep, the threat of Narcissa's planned festivities hovering gnat-like on the edges of Malfoy's consciousness.

But a mere wank was not enough; no, it was merely a flicker, but the fire burned yet. Harry turned his shaggy head in slo-mo, folded himself back around Draco with wobbly but rising interest and licked the bits he could reach. Draco nibbled Harry's neck and collarbone and sent an exploratory hand south again, fiddling around. There was some expert groping—after all this time, they'd be balls up if they couldn't manage fondle and suck things in nearly any state of mind—and sometime on 'later' Harry wordlessly summoned a pillow out of nowhere and drew up his knees, tight bum shiny with a messy lube-job, feet flat. It was all the notice Malfoy needed.

Everything was wrung out of them when Slytherin's legendary best Seeker snarled his worshipful, practiced way towards the Boy's drowsy orgasm and his own, of paramount urgency now that Potter was spread wide open beneath him, knees jouncing against the rumpled comforter, just the way a prat like Malfoy relished most—a last gasp from Harry's bared teeth as he shot, and Draco soundless as ever, jaw clenched and spasming, and then there was nothing, but _nothing_, liquid left over to spare, even the slip of sweat beads down arched spines and the jolt of cum curling up misty from the ashy embers, and then there was nothing at all but quilts and cooling skin and darkness fragrant with body heat.

HPHDHPHDHPHD HPHDHPHDHPHD HPHDHPHDHPHD HPHDHPHDHPHD

It was a dream Draco had had when he was much younger, when all the harsh words would be spent and the many hurts inflicted upon him would be buffered by sinuous, smooth-muscled flesh and he'd be wrapped up in Harry and no one could hurt him. He'd be the one Harry would turn to in the end, the only one who could save him, with a treacherous spell wrought of stolen kisses and subterranean devotion, but Harry would sense his sincerity and come to him without doubt, without hesitation.

It was a dream he'd had; childish wishes of friendship and camraderie twisted into adolescent desire, amped by a thousand degrees and then looped 'round itself, tight-tied by adulthood, and one that had crept up on Draco when he least expected it—or rather, least desired it. Only in this specific version of the dream Harry had all but killed the 'mute'. 'Dialogue' was clearly still expected, of the 'meaningful' sort. And Malfoys, as a species, fell vastly short of the mark when it came to communicating the softer emotions close-kept to their guarded underbellies and tucked deep in the inner pockets of their proud, bound-tight hearts. Pathetically short. It took a pleb to drivel on about 'feelings' and whatnot and Harry Potter with his Muggle-born mother was certainly that. Earthy, with hands suited for hoe or shovel or things that were large and landscape changing, and an eye cocked toward Immutable Truth and the mighty oaks in the acorns. And Malfoys cultivated Grecian marble and Spanish poplars and Phalaenopsis orchids and the wherewithal to collect the finished product and left the 'Capability' Brown action to those so inclined. Those Pottery people were so rightly dubbed Lancelots. Malfoys did not answer to that description.

Mostly, that was. Not always. There had been the odd exception to the rule, now and then. Malfoys racked under the applied guilt-inducing methods inflicted by a lover versed in the interrogative ways of Hermione Granger and Mad-Eye Moody _talked_ if they knew what was good for them.

He'd spewed his guts out before, usually only at Potter's insistence. But only sparingly, at best, and he'd been profoundly uncomfortable with it the entire time.

"Not much, really," Draco mumbled when Harry roused a bit, and asked Draco what was he was thinking, a leading question that sent an immediate frisson of cold dis-ease down Malfoy's back. It'd be first light soon enough and Potter should've been well-nigh knackered, if not already snoring. Draco wasn't quite certain as to why _he_ was still awake, for that matter.

"Sleeping, or nearly," he muttered back, grumpily. "Y'know, as it's entirely too early to do anything productive. Oh, and thanks for the gift."

Not that Malfoy meant to start a conversation, but…he hadn't actually acknowledged that the thought of a silly piece of metal piercing his nearly perfect body same as Harry's pleased him…somewhat.

Potter bit Malfoy's earlobe just so in a small fit of wordless pique and nudged his left hip into his partner's thigh in a manner that might or might not have been suggestive. The incipient thrill Potter's teasing always brought was still there – Draco could feel it – but it was deeply buried under the weight of recent repletion, entirely too many hours of REM deprivation and bloody unpleasant innards constantly suffering from an odd sort of vertigo. Malfoy was spackered, truly; flat out, and requiring only that any lingering awkwardness be forgotten by 'morning'—or whatever ungodly hour it'd be when they finally emerged from the sack after staying up the greater part of the friggin' night—so he only ventured a 'humph' in response, which was not what Potter wanted.

"Malfoy."

"What more can I say?" Malfoys were not happy deprived of their beauty sleep. But he could make one last effort to distract Harry away from the threatened 'chat'.

"It's lovely, Harry. Very thoughtful. You know I've always appreciated precious metals," the blonde dropped a compensatory kiss on Potter's brow, inwardly bucking up his store of patience.

"It's very understated and elegant, so I can truthfully say your questionable taste has improved whilst under my influence. Thank you again. I'll treasure it."

"Malfoy."

"…What?"

"If I tell you something, will you tell me something?"

Draco frowned; he was not playing Truth or Dare at four something o'clock in the bleeding morning.

"What are you, a twee _three_, Potter? Cute."

And why so sodding alert? Draco wondered, but he didn't care to open an investigation into that subject, as he was, too—wide-eyed and dead tired, a narcoleptic on a caffeine high—

and that was ominous in and of itself.

"Serious," Potter grinned cheekily, blinking those great green eyes of his at Draco. "Think of it as… an exchange for the gift. I'll start."

"You're barking—it's nearly dawn, Potter!" Draco protested. "We should be—ow! _Bastard!_"

Harry put his teeth away and smiled in a way Draco didn't fancy one bit. He didn't feature having his shoulder permanently scarred either, but Harry was the 'biter' and he was the 'screamer' and that was just the way it was. For the large part it worked out.

"Do you remember the beginning of Sixth Year? When we were shagging daily and I showed you all those places we could do it?"

From the faint challenge in his tired-raspy voice Potter was indirectly leading up to something, or to put it bluntly, shoving Draco toward some end of his own, and it was more than likely that bloody 'talk'. Which he'd been hoping to circumvent, but then, this was Potter. The Slyth Griff.

"Yes, what of it? _I've_ still got _my_ faculties, Potter. You suffering from senior moments now?" Malfoy leered whitely in the nearly-dark of their bedroom, the gleam of his hair reflecting the toothy smirk.

"Need me to remind you?"

Draco was not best pleased having to 'pay' for a gift. This he admitted. The slowness of that burn kept him on the edge of wakefulness when anything else might have failed, including more biting. Or prodding.

"D'you remember," Harry rightly ignored him and snuggled more firmly into Draco's shoulder, sliding one leg over his hip very possessively, "when I asked you if you had any words in your extensive pureblood vocabulary other than 'Fuck, yes' and 'Harder'?"

"Git."

This, at least, was not worth getting upset over…or so Malfoy reckoned, singularly impaired by wriggling Potter and a veritable Crucio of exhaustion-cum-biliousness. Struggling, he realized that Potter was only flirting, then; dragging out the leftovers of physical pleasure.

"Oh, and 'Harry'. You could warble my first name like a champ, Draco. You sure said it a lot."

Harry's tongue was almost touching Draco's ear again; Malfoy shivered, since his ears were extremely sensitive and damn Potter thrice to Hades for using that to his advantage.

"You were a very dodgy bloke, though, even for a Slytherin," Potter mocked. "Never said much…worthwhile."

Draco shifted, rolling over Harry as if to smother him with pale shoulders and paler hair. He buried his pointy nose into Harry's throat right at the hollow where the pulse beat steadily and forced Potter's wrists back to the sheets with a Auror-learned twisting jerk, pinning him, long legs tangling Harry's into an undoable Gordian knot.

"Shut it. That's enough."

Malfoy couldn't deny the venomous bite in his voice; it would be applied practically if Potter didn't have the good sense to drop this stupid game right…this…minute.

"So…what does it take, Malfoy?" Potter's challenge was slightly garbled by the pressure on his larynx. "To make you spill?"

Draco whipped his chin up—causing a swimmy sensation resulting partly from his ongoing poorly condition and the fuzzy diffused near-dark that threw off his innate sense of direction—and used his mobile mouth to staunch Potter's words, tossing in a nip by way of a warning. The git allowed his lips to be ravaged willingly enough but resumed his inane chatter the moment Draco lifted off enough to catch a calming breath.

"I wanted to ask you to be extra careful, Draco. To not let them have you."

It was so quiet in the flat; the susurration of the Muggle 'conditioner' doohickey as it breathed hot air out, cold air in, the creak of wood and plaster settling, muffled by wool and silk and double-paneled wooden doors. Far off, Draco could hear the whine of the cooling box's innards, the tick of the grandme're clock in the saloon. If he spoke, he would break this. Could break this.

Should break this. It was dangerous, what Potter was doing. The molecular thin tone he used to utter words that no longer mattered.

"I wanted to," Harry lifted a casual hand up to smoothe back Draco's fringe, tuck white-blonde tendrils behind his ears, his expended effort to do this nearly non-existent as Malfoy's trapping fingers were oddly numb and not clenched anywhere near as hard as they had been. Harry was free to say anything he liked. Free to move away, should he wish to. Draco couldn't stop him.

"Ask you to stay at Hogwarts and not go back home at all. And I couldn't…did you know that?" Potter's question was light, inconsequential, as if it were a passing remark about the weather or yesterday's news.

"Malfoy," Harry dropped a shadowed dare into the continued silence of Draco's stasis, "it's your turn. What did you want to tell me?"

"I," Draco's neck hurt from holding his head steady at such an uncomfortable angle; his infernal intestines were crawling sideways—he could feel them—and this was no proper time to be recalling all that foolish schoolboy emoting—they were long past that and he couldn't be happier about it. He blinked gritty eyes and deliberately allowed a rueful smile to escape him.

"Don't remember, Potter."

He dropped a passing kiss on Harry's stubbly chin: affectionate, easy, non-combative. 'Let's not do this, shall we?' pleaded the careful tension of his body, the arch of his expertly shaped brows.

"Something similar, no doubt," and Draco's reply was just as painstakingly crafted as the barbed wire in Potter's question.

"That you should be careful, I suppose. Dangerous times and all that rot."

Harry rolled them on their sides without warning, a protective hand at Draco's sore nape, and grinned in a certain sort of way Draco knew. It made the Golden Boy seem very unheroic.

"We needed you there. We used you, Draco. Did you know?"

God, how he hated it when Potter taunted him, dark chocolate masking arsenic, pins-and-poisoned-needles in every word. Malfoy's own responses were never cutting enough; they never left the same deep impression Potter's did.

"'Course I knew, Harry. Went willingly enough, didn't I?" His tone matched his expression: rueful, faintly humorous, knowingly self-deprecating. Such a hero he'd been, Draco thought, and couldn't swallow a snort.

"Like a little lamb." So thin, those words; airless and suffocating. Dissecting Malfoy's attempt into _nths_.

"Too right."

And Malfoy could only agree that he had, indeed, dutifully returned to the Manor without a word to nay-say it. Had done exactly as he should for his family's sake; had bowed down and kissed dirt and—

"'_I see clearly._'"

Harry's voice carried no weight again; it was as eiderdown, airless, as floaty as Lovegood's eerily tinny trill on a particularly bad day in the Malfoy dungeons. It terrified Malfoy as little else did, Potter reminiscent of a lost child.

"Draco. I didn't think you'd ever come back."

Malfoy winced and remembered four months of yearning, after the Dark Lord's Fall. Even that was better than this unwanted confession, this moment.

"I'd always come back. I _came_ back."

But he'd made up for at least some of his less enlightened lapses by turning his head away one important time and sneaking sustenance to certain shopkeepers and lunatics and smuggling out the meager information he could garner by post-owl and wyvern and bollixing up his Unspeakables left and right till he had no pride left as a 'Death-Eater' (and who the fuck had ever found _that_ to be more than laughable?) to parade in front of the bloody madman who was his family's infernal houseguest and no decent memories left to speak of but Harry sometimes, always leaving?

Leaving Spinner's End, where Snape had stashed him, very near the end. Leaving Hogsmeade, where they'd met in the dusty aisles of a shuttered Honeydukes after Burbage died and Draco only wanted to scream at Potter to get him out of there. Leaving him on his father's Wizarding Aubusson carpet at the mercy of a mad thing and all he could think of at the time was 'Move the fuck along, Potter! Get your blasted arse in gear!' and, well, right after that: 'I'm going to die now. Please just make it quick.'

Why was it far more horrible than his once-certain execution by a criminally insane Dark Wizard to be reminded that Potter had doubted him in his absence? That couldn't be allowed to stand; no, it couldn't. Some things _were_ immutable.

"I-I've always wanted to just speak with you," and now was Draco's chance, perhaps, to say a few words that weren't measured and trimmed to 'reasonable' and 'expected', especially as he'd been given leave in more than one way, and fucking funneled like cattle in that direction.

"Reasonably, Potter. In, ah…conversation. To tell you—of things, but I'm not 'specially good with…that, Harry. I—"

Potter cleared his throat; blinked; nudged Malfoy's knee comfortably with his own in the secret language they'd developed, and threw out a reprieve of sorts.

"—Can racket on for hours and hours about formulae and magisterial politics and where we should holiday next, but you can't _tell_ me, can you?"

Potter's tone was 'right' again—warm, affectionate, full of teasing laughter.

"I can't say shite to you, either, you know. You think I'm doing it, but I _can't_. Blast Hermione and girls for bleating on and on about 'sharing'. I get more than enough of bloody 'sharing' with Seamus."

Thank Merlin Harry had ceased with that godawful voice. Draco would happily cough up most any scrap of personal trivia to keep Harry distracted, even ancient confidences that still left his skin feeling scraped raw. Shite he shouldn't have to even think of at this point.

"…All those times, Harry, when you walked away," Draco murmured, grey eyes shuttered, nose poked deep in Harry's lovely hair, and he was only just mentioning these few points of interest to himself, really, blabbering on like he did when he knew Harry wasn't listening or wasn't there to listen, "all those times when _I _walked away from you and how we had both wanted so much for it just to stop. Be done. _I_ wanted it. But I couldn't say fu—"

"You're a prat of the first order, you know," Harry's croaky rumble drowned out Draco's mutter.

"—ckall about _not_. I was _screwed_, Potter, and you knew it—"

"I kept thinking how you'd come out with something—"

And it was no longer the war or Sixth Year Potter referred to, Malfoy knew; it was this year and last year and the several before that, the two of them duffering about being half-assed half-Aurors and all-to-recent uni grads, wet behind the ears still—aimless and drifting and vastly inexperienced in the things that apparently mattered, and always shambling off into whatever next together.

"Y' know, Malfoy honor requiring some official nonsense to make it legal or your mum insisting on you settling down or something, _anything_—I mean, everyone else was getting hitched ass-over-kettle but _you _didn't say fuck-all and _never_ said fuck-all; just were _there_, _with_ _me_, and then…and then stupid Oliver. We were doing pretty well till old Ollie—"

"Took advantage of you! That fucking maniacal bastard! I _hate _him, Harry! _Despise_ him; could eradicate him without a second's notice—hex him into an oily smear on his own fucking pitch."

Potter laughed, as he was maybe meant to, but this wasn't really a joking matter to Malfoy.

"Maybe that makes me petty, Harry, but I_ hate_ him—and Yves, too. I don't even know why I—I was so—it was so dreary there and then I could've lost you over a piece of ass and that was the _last_ thing—"

"Salazar, I swear you have shite for brains, Malfoy! Totally mental! No—no, I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_. Your brains are beautiful, darling; all of you is beautiful," Harry giggled when he saw Draco gawping.

"You just drive me mad, that's all; always doubting—'Doubting Draco.' And then you don't say a bloody word—not 'no' or 'don't do it' or 'stop', so I _can't_ tell you and I can't bring it up either, because then you'll think I mean _something else_."

Harry was nearly out-of-breath in his vehemence; throwing fragments at him like shrapnel. Draco petted him, quick touches to settle shifting hands and wild hair, but to no avail. He knew he wouldn't get a word in edgewise till Harry let him.

"You're a fucking _mess_, Draco! A nutter—basketcase; mad as a bleeding hatter! Here I thought _I _was bad enough but I don't even want to _know _what he did to you, Draco—it had to be him—it had to be awful! Poor you—poor Narcissa."

"No—He…Father wasn't bad, Harry. Not—well, he was, but that was later. Voldemort was _bad_."

Green eyes rolled at him in a way Draco chose to interpret as sympathy in the poor light of birdsong hour. Which it likely wasn't, but he could imagine that as a likely response from Potter, orphan. Draco was slowly learning to understand orphans now, but they were a breed apart, still. Thank Salazar he still had Mother.

"I _meant_, Harry, that Father was always so strict, really strict, like there was never going to be any second chances and so I…I kept thinking that it would get better at school—y'know, out from under the eagle eye a bit—but…but it never did; _nothing_ did till the very end and then he was dead and I didn't get much opportunity those last weeks, Harry, to ask him what the fuck, you know? He was so proud and so—so shattered in the end. In pieces."

He hauled in a breath, eyes steady on Harry's.

"We all were. And you _hated_ him, Harry--what was I supposed to say to you? Ask for sympathy when he'd tried to kill you umpteen times 'cause he thought he had to—no, 'cause he _wanted_ to and _then_ he thought he had to?"

Potter shook his head, just vaguely, but he didn't blink.

"No? Then tell you _you_ had to forgive him when _I_—and Mum doesn't want to talk about it, Harry. Not a word, not a stinking word except that she was 'sorry'. Didn't even say what she was sorry for, you know? Don't blame her, do you? Neither do I. Neither did I."

There was silence for a second, except for Draco's rapid breathing.

"Come here," was all Potter said after that and took his own turn at petting.

HPHDHPHDHPHD HPHDHPHDHPHD HPHDHPHDHPHD HPHDHPHDHPHD

They must've dozed, or Malfoy had, hunched around Potter, having had quite enough of heart-to-heart chit-chats at awful hours; tangling their legs together even more so, and laying his sharp chin on Harry's head, special-Draco-wrapping-paper-style. Harry had been still as tomb for such a long while but at least it was a warm and contented quiet, filled with Potter's faint comfy snuffles and shifting and his own more nasal breathing, steady in and steady out.

Till something. One eye cocked balefully at the blinds and the lightening sky behind then, Draco hoped to all the old gods combined that this particular evening's blood-letting was finished. Let them sleep, said he, but Harry's Draco-antennae must not've been tuned properly when fogged by combined exhaustion and exertion and he wasn't receiving the message broadcast by white teeth set on edge and a half-lit sneer.

It was Potter's murmur that had awakened Malfoy and heartily he cursed his lover's sheer doggedness. The man was a rat terrier down a fucking hole when he wanted something, no matter how miniscule it might be in the scheme of things, and was never satisfied unless Draco was dragged along for the ride. Draco wondered snidely if Finnegan had put him up to it. Maybe he'd suggest rolfing to Dean in retaliation.

"I wish we could've been friends, Draco" Potter was muttering, his voice soft and contemplative.

Normally they didn't speak of these things. The past was past and that was that.

"I was so angry for nothing—I mean, come on, _badges!_—and I should've known better but I never took my soddin' head out of my arse. No wonder you hated me."

Draco unclenched his jaw long enough to allow that he hadn't hated Potter quite as much as he'd seemed to. There were circumstances, after all. Extenuating ones. Like snogging and shagging. Deathless wishes.

"Not that, precisely," he answered awkwardly, feeling strangely obligated to reply when he could've justifiably ignored his bedmate.

"I—You were—it was too late, I think. It was like there was this window of opportunity and we missed it entirely, just missed it. If we'd had more time in Madame Malkin's, even ten more minutes, we could've. Maybe. I don't know—and it's too late now."

"I'm just glad I figured out why—" Potter broke in, speaking over him, a quick hand spread across Draco's diaphragm.

"'Cause you wanted to shag me—" And Malfoy had known that then, knew it now, and was…was.

"Of course I wanted to shag you!" There was sizzle to Harry's skin that hadn't been there when he first opened his mouth.

"I'm not _that _much of an arse!"

No. No, Malfoy admitted. Silently. He admitted something else as well, stung alive again by Pottery magic.

"…That…pleased me."

A dark brow quirked at him, inviting details.

"I thought…I was sure there was something there." Fuck, Draco _had_ been sure of it, at least on his part, and Potter was no liar for all his omissions.

"Something?" And Harry was chortling incredulously, slyly, in a manner that invited Draco to join in and blasted away any lingering shyness.

"I'd say! Bloody fucking fireworks, Draco! All the time…_all the time_. Every time I saw you—every time I thought about you I was fucking _hard_."

Lips sliding, seeking, finding. This would never end, never end—no, never.

"_Fucked you_," Harry voice in his ear was guttural, and his tone was pure sin. "Every time you took me, you arrogant bastard."

Draco felt like purring. Oh, Salazar, yes—there were _good _memories, some of them.

Which resultant mutual goodwill led to some rather intense snogging indeed—half off his head, Draco wondered where he'd summoned the energy—and then they nearly passed out with their mouths still attached, like moray eels, till Harry started muttering again, his lips slipping half-on and half-off Draco's and the crown of his messy head very familiarly tucked into Draco's pit.

"I used to think about you, Malfoy. Really _think_. When I was supposed to be swotting, I was wondering what you were doing, what with your father and Mark and the Room. But just what you were doing, too. Small shite. All the everyday bits, like what you got up to when you and your mates went to Hogsmeade and what your dorm room looked like and whether you liked any Muggle music and stuff. Whether you'd even heard of it. What all the fucking crap you said to me meant—all those sharp cutty things you kept harping on year after year but you never once killed me. Broke my bloody nose and kicked me in the fucking ribcage and damn near everything short of it and then didn't ruddy kill me! That was weird—I thought that was _weird_, Draco. Spinny."

"'M'not," Malfoy had been lulled by the sound of Harry—best sound in the world, Potter yapping—but he didn't appreciate the insult.

"Daft—you seemed it, sometimes. When I was at the Dursleys between Fifth and Sixth, before it all went cock-up," Potter continued meditatively as they both shifted about, adjusting covers and limbs, "I was wondering where you might've gone for the summer, what adventures you must've been having, whether you'd gotten to brush up on your flying. If you had a fecking tan or if you still resembled a fishbelly. Whether you were going to owl me or something 'cause we'd shagged. And then when we went back, it was all I could manage to keep Hermione from guessing how much I was thinking about you and even then she and Ron went on and on about me being obsessed."

Draco blinked sleepily and gave a tiny half-nod, knocking their foreheads together gently. But his attention was on the animal glow of Harry's eyes. Mesmerizing, they were. Should be illegal.

"Pans said the same thing," he offered, not really caring. It was a long time ago, now. "About me, I mean. She was arsed."

"I don't think I've ever stopping thinking about you since."

"Me neither."

"And I wanted to, you know?" Potter sounded a tad too enthusiastic about that. Malfoy pursed his lips.

"I was so slogged out and there was always Voldemort buggering up my head and I didn't _want _to be going widdershins worried about you and what you were getting up to and then trying to come up with a way just to talk to you. And then we…well, _that_, and that just made it worse and worse."

"I beg pardon?" Draco interrupted, eyebrow up, the thin feathery arch brushing across Harry's brow. "'Worse'?"

"Mmm," Harry nodded, so their noses bumped. His been-up-all-night face crinkled into a friendly smile.

"'_Worse_'. You're so much bother; so much of a right pain in my bum, Malfoy; you've been a git to me all my frigging life, don't you realize?"

Smirk, frown, sneer from Malfoy. Realization? Or perhaps simply the opportunity to bitch a bit, long denied. Draco didn't differentiate; he just gathered a slow head of steam in the growing light striping faded marks across their blankets.

"Yeah. Well, me, too. _You_, too, Scarhead. I wanted to…I wanted to hurt you sometimes, Harry, just for taking all those idiotic chances. I was so ticked at you—always so _pissed_. I was hacked off you'd snagged the bleeding Snitch again or hating you for being knocked about _again_ or sodding strung out shagging you, and you—_you_ just kept your bloody trap zipped and didn't say one word about fucking any of it—like a fucking Sphinx, Potter!"

He bit Harry in retaliation, sucking that full lower lip into his mouth and nipping hard after he'd tasted it. Blood—just a drop; small punishment for a Potter ignoring a Malfoy, long overdue.

Malfoy spat out Harry's lip; gripped one shoulder punishingly tight. Now that he remembered—now that he was forced to—he had a great deal to angry with Potter for. Not the least of which was Potter's tiresome habit of secrecy.

"You could've been killed during that asinine Tournament, you spaz, and I wouldn't have even known it! Salazar's Balls, you hadn't even had the courtesy to clue me on in on half then that I know now! The Basilisk and Quirrel and what that frigging house-elf of Father's did to you and then all the shite Father pulled…I might _never_ have had the chance to shag you, Potter! You might've been offed in First Year!"

"No, sorry," Harry shook his head dolefully, dragging his lips down at the edges in some over-the-top show of faux remorse. He jerked his arm out of Malfoy's clutches, rubbing at the red marks left there by Draco's fingertips.

"I was... protected, I'd guess you'd call it. It kinda sucked."

"Sucked?!"

"Well, everybody _else_ always died—or got hurt—but not me. Never _me_."

His hangdog expression was wiped abruptly. Malfoy startled—it was a whole different Potter looking at him, not seeing. Draco hated it instantly.

"You know, Boy Who—"

"Shut the fuck _up_, Potter!"

Oh, yes, all that easy golden glow they'd had going just a while ago had pretty much dissipated. Draco was amazed he was still this bitter. Amazed Harry dare even

"You and your bloody _complexes_—I've had more than enough of that crock, Harry! Whinger! And _don't_ give me your shite about coming through without a stinking scratch, either—I was fucking there at the TriWizard!"

Harry made a moue of annoyance at the current contents of his brain…and possibly at Draco, clear and present visual cue of some of the less-than-happy events of Harry's teenage years.

"Yeah…well, that's how _I_ fucking felt, Malfoy, not that _you_ cared at the time. _I_ hated it—hated all of it, all the time. Dumbledore. Sirius. You. Your dad. Everyone. Though at least you never fucking backpedaled and pretended you actually _gave a shite_, Draco."

"Right, _sure, _Potter. Absolutely. My one saving grace, according to Saint Potter: getting an Orange for acting like I didn't give a shite! What was I supposed to do, Harry, sob all over your damned scruffy Muggle trainers how ecstatic I was that you'd somehow survived yet another sodding year of _school?_ I didn't even _know _anything, you fucktard—you never _told_ me, not till it was almost too late! You are an arsehole! An unmitigated gob! A bas—!"

"Never too late, Draco."

Such power, Harry's words had. They cut across years, sliced through scabs and scar tissue. Rendered him witless and pliant.

"…No. Never."

That Potter was correct was not something Malfoy cared to argue. He had never been stupid, only hot-headed.

"So…" Clearly, Potter felt like a change of subject. "When we first snogged, did you like it?"

"Merlin, yes!"

_That_ was more like. Draco could get on this bandwagon, no prob. A little smoochy pillow-talk might be the best he'd get till tonight, considering the day Mum had planned and their likely state of mental zombiehood through most of it. Balls, but he dispised being out of synch like this.

"You were a little dazed, I thought. I had you off-balance."

Potter was cleared pleased by this memory, as he was grinning and poking Draco in the neck. Speaking of, Harry didn't know about Mother's floo earlier, Draco recalled, so he should—

"Up yours with a big pointy stick, Potter. Of course I was dazed. I was in luuurve. Completely smitten. Sodden with Pottyhead pheromones. _Harry_—"

"Uh-huh."

"No, seriously, you wanker."

Narcissa's machinations were lost in translation. For some reason, Potter just couldn't keep his damned mouth from moving, not that Draco was complaining.

"…You know what Luna told me?"

Another indefinite time period had passed. The morning light was ever stronger and more insistent. They were never going to get to sleep at this rate.

"When we first got together?"

Dawn was finally doing its thing: sparrows and starlings up and about, lorries honking in the far distance. Big Ben tolled six and the edges of the curtains were shining with a pure, grey light and Draco smelled java and silently blessed Kreacher for being the little he was.

"Did it have to do with weird magical fauna?"

He budged himself up a bit on the mound of pillows, taking Harry with him, and settled them both into a position that would allow the consumption of hot beverages, surely imminent. Harry grumbled a bit at the jostling but complied, getting back to his chosen topic.

"Rather," his voice very rough now with lack of sleep. Lack of lubrication.

"She said we were Tibetan Folding Cranes."

"She says that all the time."

"I know. Ever wonder what they were?"

Draco grinned like the madman he was, going on twenty-four hours with no real rest to speak of. This was all very amusing, oddly enough. His ears were ringing.

"No, I can't say that's something _I_ was obsessed with—hey, how did she know, anyway? I thought it was something we were never to speak of? _I_ never mentioned it, but then _I_ know how to keep my yob shut. Did _you_ tell her, Potter?"

A distressing thought, but not as much as, say, Finnegan knowing…or Nott.

"Not likely," Harry returned in a mild manner. He crossed his arms on his bared chest and watched the door.

"This is Luna, you know? She knew…probably because she _knows_."

Draco chuckled.

"She's completely Escher, that woman. Admit it, our friend Lovegood is a fecking staircase that meets itself in the middle."

"Can I let her know you said that?" Harry looked delighted, which improved Draco's insanely good mood further.

"Sure. She'll probably be ecstatic."

"Speaking of obsessions—" The delight slid to amusement, tinged with an undefined emotion.

"Way to segue gracefully, Potter," and that was funny, too, Draco thought. Vaguely, it came to him that they might both be punch-drunk with the lack of sleep. Harry was as squiffy as he was.

"We were _not_, in any way, speaking of obsessions, not unless you were referring tangentially to Nargles or some such." Malfoy pointed out, with an air of calm superiority. He settled his arm more firmly 'round Harry's shoulders, pulling him close.

"I've never known anyone so obsessed with things as you are," Potter stated, nodding to himself in agreement.

"You're like all about every little detail, so anal. Three of things—why is it always _three_ of things, Malfoy? The main, the backup and the spare? What?"

"You have your own faults, Scarhead; don't get me started."

He coulsdn;t help himself; that naked chest was just so distracting—it had to be handled and _now_.

"So…what are you going to do about _me_, Malfoy?" Harry wriggled uneasily under Draco's roving hands. "There's only one of me."

Malfoy saw the barrier coming—an impossibly tall fence, rickety-splintery and with fathoms-deep water on the other side of it—and found himself jumping anyway, as if Potter had laid a birch switch to his flank.

"_Oh_, so maybe _that's_ why! I've to handle you so carefully because you're just so damned _unique_, Potter. Gods! That's _it!_ Color me surprised—Eureka, even!"

"Cut it out, prat."

"You're so bloody annoying, Potter. You make my jaw ache."

"Right. Going to answer my question, Malfoy? Feel like fucking 'sharing'?"

"You know… I can't even credit this…you're a pinhead, Potter—the tiniest and I must be doddy, but. Do you know, Potter, do you know…I think that's why I—I want succession."

Draco bucked and rolled, tucking Potter under him carefully as he did so, capturing Harry's dear face between two cold hands that shook with nerves. He was here, now, and perhaps it wouldn't be so awful, since Harry himself had brought it up.

"I want an heir, Harry," Draco blurted. So much for restraint and leading up to things. Bugger that, then.

"I've been thinking—that is, I—"

"Draco—"

"Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Salazar's Freaking Shorts, Potter. I _want _them. I finally—I mean can't believe I actually admitted that. I'm so—_fuck_, Harry, I'm sorry, but I—"

"—Had to have it dragged out of you, Malfoy, with tongs!" Potter giggled and smirked. Giggled! The ponce! Malfoy was blind-sided by that revelation, too.

"You're a _coward_, Malfoy, that's what you are. Always have been. I've been ready to use a bleeding shark prod to force you."

Draco was kissed, hard and fast. Harry surged up between his hands, a tired-eyed, pale-faced geyser of affection. It was delightful; Dom Perignon straightlined into Draco's veins. A mimosa cocktail for toasting the turning of the dreary tatters of winter to the shy buds of spring.

Renewal.

"_Love_ you for it, Draco, don't _you_ know?" Potter was bloody _giddy_. It was laughable. Draco was laughing—choking on it, yes, but laughing nonetheless. With relief.

"That's _so_—jeez, I can't believe you're such a fucking _girl_, Draco! I can just see this—you'll swell up like a beached narwhal and I'll be buying blood pops and ginger chutney at midnight and you'll drive us all bonkers and it'll be _brilliant_—oh, Godric's Teeth, Draco! Did you really _mean_ that?"

"Of course I really meant that! I said it, didn't I?" He was lipping Harry's face between nearly every word, saluting eyebrows and nostrils and the infamous scar and black lashes too long for Potter's own good—that mouth and all of it.

"It was damned difficult to say that, I'll have you know," he assured Harry's neck, just by his ear. "I should be strung up for Looney Lovegood's Nargles to nibble."

"—_can't_ breathe, Malfoy!"

"Mmm, shut it, Harry." Amazing, all the physical misery had subsided—it was better than Pepper Up, better than any restorative potion know to Wizardkind.

" I'm kissing you into submission, Potter. How else am I _ever_ get the upper hand again, may I ask? I should just commit myself right now, bloody Potter—you'll never shut up about it, will you? _Never._"

"Draco…"

"Never, that's when. And you— _you_ should be grateful _I_ brought it up at all—what were you going to do, wait around for the stork?"

"Stork? Not a crane?"

"Stuff your cranes! Well—what do you think, then, other than jerking my chain? I—do you like the idea?"

"Shite, yes! Yes, I 'like' the idea, stupid Draco! It's still so, well, _weird_—I mean Muggles hardly ever do stuff like that—"

"Stuff like what?"

"Um, you know, men having babies."

"Right. Okay. Muggles. And your point is?"

"So, um, it's just weird. Unnatural."

"It's not weird! Didn't you ever stay awake during History of Magic, Potter? Binns went over all the early Wizarding families at length and in excruciatingly _microscopic_ detail and I know for a fact he lectured for two weeks on the various legal means of succession at the time of the Norman Conquest and that was a perfectly valid method of securing an heir—"

"Yeah, yeah, okay. Enough! I get it. _Hermione_."

"Sod you, _Hermione_ knows about this, Harry! Your Weasel'd be the one swelling with a bun in the oven if she were barren—it's fact; it's Wizarding science! You just can't lie there laughing your bleeding Muggleborn arse off and tell me you never thought about it! It's part of our _history_! It's how we all managed to keep plugging along, Potter! And _me!_ I must have dropped however many hints on your thick head and you never even picked up on it, you shite-for-brains!"

"Draco! You don't have to bloody hit me over it! Calm the fuck down!"

"Well, Harry, then…then _say _something! You're the one all about 'choices'! This is a choice and I'm asking! Do you want the blighters or not? Little Potters? Little Malfoys? Little Whatever-the-fuck-we-call-'ems?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

"Good, then. T-That's good._ I_, for one, need an heir. _You_ need an heir. We need progeny, Potter. It's required. We have property."

"'Potfoys'."

"So…when, exactly? We're-_I'm_ going to have set aside time for a sabbatical. Arrange with Severus. And they're 'Malpots', you git."

"Never the easy questions, eh, Malfoy? Not '_Mal_pots', prat. '_Pot_foys'."

"No. No, I can't say as I'm especially easy. 'Malotters'. No, better—'Malplotters'. I'm referring to you as 'Malplotter' from here on, Harry. And your reply is?"

"Execrable. You are a sot and wart on my bum, Potfoy. And I am so totally a headcase about you I must be certifiable, _Draco,_ but I've got to tell you right now I don't want 'em yet. In the future, yes, bur right now I want to skive off a while."

"Wh—Oh…kay. Okay. Sure. Same here; we should wait—early days yet."

"And _not_ because I don't love you or want to have a future with you, alright?" Harry shoved his face so close to Draco's his eyes were blur of green specked with gold and his pupils were bloody enormous.

"I _do_ love you and I _do_ want children and I _do_ want a future with you. Just…not the 'children' part. No little ankle-biters…yet. Want to wait."

"A-Alright…Harry."

"Not forever—'M not saying we're on a schedule but…I want some more time first. Regular time. No pressure. No obligations. And I want you fit first. In fact, I want you fit _now_, Draco."

"I'm already _on_ that, Harry," Malfoy heaved a sigh. This was old ground they were covering.

"I don't like it either, you know."

"I know. But it really frightens me, Draco. Promise me you'll go to Poppy first thing Monday morning and then if we need to go to St. Mungo's, haul my bum out of class. Someone'll cover for us. Severus will see to it."

"Oh! You know, you've that meeting with that Danish Proctor, which you really can't afford to miss—"

"Come and get me, Draco. Or get Poppy to." Potter's voice was implacable.

"Yes, alright," Draco gave in with ill grace. "Bully."

"Bully for _you_."

"Prat."

"Yep."

Clearly, that was all that was to be said on that subject. With plenty of food for thought, though—good thoughts—Draco couldn't bring himself to complain. He laid his weary head on Harry's shoulder instead, sighing inaudibly.

"…I'm tired, Harry. I'm going to die if I don't get sleep. I don't even want coffee anymore."

Potter dropped a kiss on his pale forehead.

"Me, too."

"…Mum moved brunch up to tomorrow, Harry. Forgot to tell you. Today, actually. And kept Sunday dinner on, too. Both days—we're doomed by familial sociality."

Another put-upon sigh was heaved.

"We'll probably end up hunting colored dragon eggs, wearing Wicked Weasel ears."

Harry shoved pillows. Tugged up the goosedown comforter; edged Draco over to his side.

"Fuck. Go to sleep then."

Spelled the designer blinds shut tightly, so that dawn and birdsong were blocked for the moment.

"Kiss me g'night first."

Draco was definitely fading fast. It was inevitable, given Harry's methods of wringing confessions out of him. Not fair—not Gryffindor at all, really.

"Oh, I'll snog you."

"…Harry…'arry. Stop. We need to sleep."

"Hmm. When we wake up, tell your Mum dinner would be better. And stop hiding that with your hand; I want to lick it."

"Certainly. She won't buy it, you know. Andy and Teddy have been roped into this extravaganza—oh!_fuck!_ Hedonista!"

There was still the faintest spark of snark left in Malfoy, even gasping. He thrust up and shoved down and Harry was just where he should be.

"Whore," Harry grumbled, eyed the pale cock now dangling right by his nose. With effort, Malfoy prevented himself from shoving his tool up Harry's nostrils.

He'd believed he was wrung dry, so why? Eh—whatever.

"_Fine," _Potter was still throwing around orders for their obligations to Mum, as if it would make a difference.

"We'll do both but today's 'brunch' is going to end being 'lunch'. Or _tea_."

And Malfoy had evidently infected Potter by long association. The Boy Wonder sneered his _defacto _mum-in-law's rigid agenda and painted saliva stripes on the illustrious person of her son with his tongue.

"Mmm-hmm. Suck on that so I can sleep, will you, Potter?"

Draco was of the mind Harry would get away with it—Mum adored Harry. A manicured hand guided the irritable jab he gave Harry's lips, butting swollen glans up to the jaw that stubbornly closed again. When Potter gave the slightest opportunity—bitching about somethind, no doubt, as he _never_ shut up, even during orgasm—Malfoy was right there, Johnny-on-the-spot, easing deftly in past teeth that could do quite decent amounts of damage.

"You're insatiable—" Potter's voice was muffled. "Perverted…bleeding Sodomite! Salazar, Draco! I'm so goddamned tired, I'm sober!"

Harry gagged a bit on his mouthful, but he refrained from biting.

It must be love, then. It felt so damned wonderful Draco had no words for it. He prayed Harry wouldn't ask for any, down the road.

"Maniac!"

"Not…my…_p-problem_," Draco groaned happily and gave himself up entirely to the exquisite suction.


	8. Chapter 8

HP Combustion

Movement 7: Grave—Largo—Molto Lente

Draco stood aimlessly, dress shirt clutched loosely in one hand and pressed against his navel, torso half-turned toward the door of the private examining room Poppy had ushered him into not a hour before, bare feet still planted firmly in the direction of the infirmary bed, looking for all the world as if he could not decide which direction he should go next.

He was mostly bared in deference to his physical, though he still wore his boxers, and he was perhaps a shade or two paler than usual, though a fine collection of goosebumps marred the smoothness of his skin, every translucent blonde hair aprickle with shock. His scalp itched; he felt terribly nauseous. The room had started a slow swing about him that was disconcerting at best. His heart had picked up speed and a certain off-key thud-bump, and he was experiencing just a wee bit of trouble inhaling normally. The hand that wasn't clenched about his white button-down hung loosely at his side, fingers spread and flexing with faintest of motions.

It was quiet here, other than the faint hum of the Muggle cooler units Pomfrey had had installed after the war, and the storage room next door filled to the gills with odd monitoring machines Granger had adapted for her use for some of the more difficult to diagnose Muggleborn conditions. The smell of potions and antiseptic and medical progress was very strong, all overlaid with the soothing shades of lavender and chamomile tea and spearmint. From the one window in the tower room he caught the faint shouts of the Third Years in Madame Hooch's class, practicing their landings on the muddy spring turf. Weak morning sunlight poured over his shoulders and onto the stone flags and the hint of a ice-laden breeze eddied in from off the distant Caledonian mounts. It was all very familiar. With his eyes closed, Draco could believe that this was not…what it was becoming, not at all.

"Why, Draco, I do believe you're pregnant!"

Poppy's familiar face had reflected surprise, even pleasure, as if that were not quite the worst thing that could happen to a Malfoy intimately involved with a Potter. As for himself, inured after thirty minutes of intensive, repetitive questioning as to what he'd consumed in the last six months, the course of his usual Christmas hols flu, the potions he'd ingested for his various ailments, his vertigo, his perpetually unhappy intestines, his headaches and depression and odd allergies to foodstuffs—the pain in his gut that had increaded geometrically on Sunday evening and the horrible incident of cold, drowning and terror-ridden insensibility he'd suffered through when Harry had blacked out mid-February; _he _was rendered mute; numb, even. Pomfrey's apparent happiness for him—for them both, for of course she'd babbled on about how Potter had always yearned for his own family and wasn't it lovely and wouldn't everyone be so pleased?—had bounced off Draco's impervious calm, for of course, Potter would _not_ be pleased.

Not in the slightest, even if…even if Draco hadn't planned this. Especially as this was, as Poppy euphemized it, 'a fortunate mishap'.

"I hadn't thought to test this before—it's been quite some time, of course, since we've had two professors expecting—" Poppy had cleared her throat uncomfortably, all her innate disapproval of 'shacking up' bottled with bone-ingrained patience learned from decades of dealing capably with children of all ages—"and then of course you'd be taking precautions, dear. It's not so rare these days that it can't happen spontaneously, but…well, let me carry on, shall I? Make sure all's well."

And he'd risen and removed his robes and clothing as ordered, an automaton, and suffered through the indignity of Poppy pressing her wand tip to his groin and thighs and flaccid bits, the cavity where his thundering heart lay, the flinching small of his achy back. Draco had felt the small zings of spells from a very far distance, for it was…it was a tragedy, to come this far, and then risk Potter over something no one could've anticipated.

'Precautions'? He hadn't even considered them. He'd seen pregnant wizards before, of course, in his youth, come to dine in state with his parents—had met them, those invariably pureblood males who were swathed in special robes and accompanied by their hovering pureblood mates, but never one who displayed his state overtly. Never one who showed off his belly, grotesquely swollen with a much-desired heir.

It was a very private thing, this, and any Wizarding pair who entered into such a state willingly had done so with all the traditional protective charms and wards in place. Recognition from families. The appropriate vows of fidelity; the transfer of properties, bonds and rings and once again, the all-important recognition. Approval, for this was a legitimate method of extending their kind beyond the shaky present, of impacting the often frightening future. It was a thing that only people like Malfoys did—purebloods all, with unsullied bloodlines to protect and nurture, traditions to fulfill and pass on. Property. Wealth. Knowledge.

Parkinsons, Blacks, Lestranges, Gaunts, even Weasleys—at some point or another during their centuries-long histories, they'd all dealt with situations like this one, but.

_Not _people like Potter, with his Muggle upbringing and his self-sacrificing mother and his way of distracting Malfoys from even considering this as a possible consequence of on-going shagging. Not people like _Potter_, who'd accepted the option of acquiring a future in this manner intellectually but had no idea just how vital it had been to the Wizarding world not a mere two decades ago, before female surrogates had become all the rage. And now again, what with the Muggleborns exposed to what they termed 'homos' and 'gays' in a more positive light and the furious conservatism of a callously anti-everything Ministry and Wizamgot diluted with the new breed of tolerant, flexible, upwardly-mobile young wizards, fresh from war and the American and European universities. People like him and Potter, who cared more about the future than the past, more about enduring peace than mere property.

And so—of course, because nothing between Potter and Malfoy had ever been simple—he, Draco, had this—this horrible complication to deal with, the last event ever expected, the worm-eaten apple that could very well sink his cart altogether, and obliterate forever after the atmosphere of comfort and trust and familiarity between Draco and Harry he'd cultivated so very carefully these last ten or so years. They were not 'bonded', per se, or anything like it. Nor 'married', in the Muggle sense of the word. They merely lived together, ate together, slept together, worked together, shared families with one another, shared_ lives_.

And even if there was no doubt in Draco's mind—a blank, grey place after the sounding of the word 'pregnant', drear and nebulous and sizzling 'round the edges—that Potter would step up to the plate and be supportive—even if he wasn't absolutely positive Harry would once again be the Hero and sublimate his own wishes for the greater good—

"Oh, my!" Poppy had exclaimed softly amidst the dazzling whiz and spark of diagnostics, her hand just over the spot where Draco's appendix was located. Her pursed lips went a little strained around the edges and she'd frowned ever so slightly, pressing against something sore, something tender. Malfoy had wondered absentmindedly if he'd developed a case of chronic peritonitis on top of everything else that had befallen him against his will.

"Draco, dear, do stand up very straight for a moment. I just need to—"

Pomfrey's face changed—just a glimpse Draco got, for she was professional to the core—and then she'd smiled again, faded eyes shielded, and backed away from him as though he were contagious.

"Do pardon me, Draco, for the moment. I need to confirm one symptom; pop my head in the Floo to Obstetrics at St. Mungo's. I'll just be a tick. Have a seat on the bed, please, while you wait."

She whirled away in a flurry of robes and apron, but was back before Malfoy could manage a blink, so slow was time trickling through him.

"Swallow this, Draco dear." A roundish gel-coated tablet was pressed against his lips. "Yes, that's right. And a sip," and there was water, too, and Draco obeyed wordlessly, not even swaying.

It was only two days ago. Only two, and he'd been cautiously happy, looking forward to…things. Exhausted, yes, but with his blood singing through his veins and more—more relaxed than he'd ever remembered being, so that even the lingering discomfort in his middle had all but faded away. Two days. Not even forty-eight hours.

Poppy had eyed her newest charge carefully, not saying anything further, and put a concerned hand at his elbow to urge him toward the cot, but Draco didn't budge. He hurt, and ached, and in his center, he was very aware that something wasn't right—that it was all horribly wrong, and that this was infinitely worse than Wood or sicking up for four months straight or the Dark—

And he'd been abandoned by a carefully silent Pomfrey, who left him caught between bed and door with shoulders squared and incorrectly functioning body petrified, the edifice of his comfortable, painstakingly constructed life in smoking ruins about his stocking feet.


	9. Chapter 9

HP Theorem Combustion

MOVEMENT 8: Prestissimo

"Severus!"

The Headmaster's head snapped up from the parchment spilling over his well-worn desk and his quick, cold eyes immediately sought the hearth. It flared green, the flames limned to white-hot, a sure sign the caller was verging on frantic.

"Madame?"

The drawling sneer was the same after fifteen years; time had not appeared to have altered Snape one bit. Still dark-visaged, still sardonic, still smelling faintly of sulphur and hair-tonic. Black robes, black brows, and a twist to his fine-drawn mouth that spoke of sucking on lemons daily. If there were any other…'events'…in his life that were of any satisfaction, they did not carry over here, to his office.

"We have a situation, Severus!" Pomfrey was very rarely unsettled. Snape did her the compliment of paying her his full attention.

"What is it, Poppy? Speak."

"I need you to get Harry, Headmaster," as Pomfrey laid out her instructions, she calmed visibly, wand tapping double-chin, eyes grave. She was the medical authority here, after all, and young Malfoy was her patient. The father needed to know, first thing, which meant Harry had to extricated from lecture without undue fuss.

There'd be fuss enough later, if her diagnoses was correct. And she needed to contact St. Mungo's immediately, for the potion she—_Draco_, poor boy—needed was not available in Hogwarts Infirmary, geared as it was towards prevention and childhood illness and accidents.

"Out of his Third Period lecture this instant; send him here alone, Severus. No one else. And I need a draught of Dreamless, adult-strength, from your stillroom first and foremost, and two more bezoars stat. Send an elf for those straight away and then you'd better contact Narcissa and Molly and whoever else you see fit after that, Severus. And expect scads of visitors, Headmaster—excuse me, please. I'm waiting on a return Floo from St. Mungo's—"

"What _is _it, Poppy!" Snape demanded, his stubborn heels dug in so clearly even Pomfrey could hear their mulish stomp in the midst of her whirlwind planning, and Madame whipped her white-capped head back around and glared Snape down as if the Headmaster were an utter imbecile.

"Miscarriage! Pureblood _miscarriage_, Severus! Young Draco Malfoy. Fifth month through term," she informed him, voice pruned to precision. "And probable infection to the bloodstream—he's likely septic or about to be: we have very little time! Now, _move!_"

And the Headmaster snapped to and did as he was ordered, the flood of black dread filling his middle carefully concealed behind layer upon layer of Occlumens when mildly concerned green eyes—oh, those eyes!—met his through the Floo connexion and Harry instantly agreed to have his TA cover the remainder of Fourth Year Potions and step smartly up to the Infirmary. It seemed almost as though the Head of Slytherin had expected to be interrupted, but Snape knew there was no way he'd ever have anticipated this.

And his godson! Draco—oh, but this was—

Unthinkable. They were not bonded; there'd been none of the usual preparation—Draco was vulnerable in a way that could not be fathomed.

It was all Severus could do to remain staidly seated in his desk chair, knuckles tight and white around the carven spindled arms, making the necessary Floo calls in order and responding calmly to what was undoubtedly an emergency of the highest degree.

It made Snape wish that Professor Dumbledore's concerned but approving gaze upon him and his aged, outstretched fingers were real enough to literally grasp the occupant of the Headmaster's chair through the oils and reflective lacquer. Snape could use a comforting hand on his shoulder at this moment. The yearning gave rise to a craving for the presence installed in his home at Spindle's End, always there, always available. Yes, he could use a steady hand on his shoulder right this minute; better yet, an embrace and the body heat of someone who cared, unconditionally.

But—his poor Draco. It was unthinkable, and poor...unfortunate Potter. How…damnably awful to lose—

_HP!HD! HP!HD! HP!HD! HP!HD! HP!HD!__ HP!HD! HP!HD! HP!HD! HP!HD! HP!HD!_

Poppy snagged Harry's elbow as he walked through the Infirmary door—or panted, as he'd run up three flights and down three extra-lengthy corridors. He would've Apparated, as Hogwarts allowed him that, but he didn't, mindful of his position. It had taken him only five minutes, though, to cover a ten minute distance.

"Drac—!"

"_Shh!_ He's right through there and I've just given him a bezoar. He'll keep for a minute, Harry. Just listen!"

And Madame filled him on the situation as she knew it—serious, yes, but not life-threatening just yet. Not at all, given her immediate response, as soon as she'd realized.

Draco would be safe: experts were on call; the proper potion was prepared and due any moment now; there'd be a night in the Infirmary for observation, or possibly St. Mungo's; additional tests and follow-through, supplements, potions and—

All a blur and a buzzing around the only two important words that truly got through to Harry: 'safe' and 'miscarriage'. Fuck! He hadn't even known they were preggers!

Harry wrenched his arm away and was through the door into the examination room like ballbusters, and there was Malfoy, an ice sculpture, and Potter put his arms around him on instinct.

And did not let go, though Poppy was in the room right after, followed by a grey-faced Snape and some white-coated Healerish gentleman likely straight from the staff at St. Mungo's, vial clutched in one gloved hand, a metallic cart rumbling menacingly behind him. A monitor and a fibre-thin steel needle attached to plastic tubing were introduced, difficult to insert given that Draco was curled up tight against Harry's chest and all his blue-blooded veins were hiding. Narcissa next—Hermione, Ron, Pans and Blaise tumbling through the door in a heap of frowns and loud exclamation—Molly—

A bustle of hushed voices and activity outside the door that everyone but Poppy, Hermione, Snape and the St. Mungo's healer was ushered through excessively firmly by a thin-lipped, barking Madame, and Draco lifted his parchment-paper pointy chin at last from Harry's chest, obediently swallowed a Potion and another horse-pill and muttered one word only:

"Sorry."

And slept like the dead. Leaving Harry.


	10. Chapter 10

HP Theorem: Combustion

MOVEMENT 9: Largo

"There's a reason there's a properly proscribed procedure, Potter."

Snape's tone was as acid-washed as ever, even if he still boasted an unhealthy shade of grey about the nose and temples purely from lingering anxiety.

"Er…um, what?" Harry mumbled sleepily and raised his head a bit off the pillow he and Draco were sort of sharing. Mostly, though, his lover was positioned across Harry's chest and torso, limp as leftover linguini. Draco said nothing, but sighed ever so faintly and burrowed his aquiline nose deeper into Harry's collarbone, being deeply asleep. Or perhaps unconscious.

"What he _means_, Harry, is that, well. You and Draco must perform the necessary rituals and consume the correct potions if you're seriously planning to conceive," Hermione stuck her nose into the conversation. She was as ashen as Snape but her eyes were sparkling again now that Malfoy's final potion had been administered and the immediate danger was over with.

"And carry it," she continued. "Them. I'm going to assume you want more than one, you and Draco. There's a whole magical ritual involved here, Harry, and you two just flat-out blew right by it."

"Um?"

But it was as if Harry couldn't really rouse himself to ask what Hermione was going on about, or Snape, either. Blearily, he knew it was very late indeed for a pair of Hogwarts professors who kept early hours these days and he was more than tired, he was hammered; he and Draco had to rise early in the morning, after all, and he didn't know what in Salazar had possessed them to invite company into their bedroom, especially Hermione, who ought to be home with Ron and their little one…only thing was, why was he still in his teaching robes with all the bloody lights lit? Had he been drinking? And since when was their bedroom this bright-white and antiseptic-smelling?

"Harry!" The concern in Madame Pomfrey's voice jerked him marginally closer to a waking state. "Listen to me, Harry! What the Headmaster is trying to tell you is imperative for Draco's health in the future, Harry—"

"Uh…wha-what?" Harry was all ears when it came to Draco's well-being. Hadn't he been worrying over it for positive ages? He'd kept after him but Draco just—

"—and I wouldn't wish for either of you to go through this again. No one would, dear. I'd imagine it's just been heart-wrenching for him—"

"Draco? 'Again'?"

"—and for you, but it's not the end of the world, Harry. You must keep that in mind. There's always next time."

_Why did Poppy keep repeating his name?_ Harry wondered vaguely, _when it was Draco who was—_

_Who had._

_Oh—gods. It was true, then. Not a nightmare, not some bloody fantasy—all true, and they. They'd lost. _

"No. No, it isn't, Potter," Snape's deep rumble agreed. "On the contrary, after allowing a few months for recuperation, I'm of the opinion you and my unfortunate godson will be able to approach this like reasonable people," Snape inserted gravely.

"Madame."

Harry _was_ awake now, or at least at sixty percent, despite the overwhelming feeling of languor that had swamped him the moment Draco passed out, and he was vaguely curious as why in Hades he was so very bone-tired and disoriented. And there was his newly revived sense of urgency, nagging away at him to discover what the fuckall was going on…even though. Even though he thought he might…know.

"Of course, I'll be happy to offer my assistance for the Ritual," Snape continued, sounding very urbane, as if he were offering to cover a lecture instead, or take up for Harry at one of the International Potions Symposiums he and the Headmaster attended annually, "and I believe I may be able to function as _your_ familial representative, Potter, which is an absolute necessity and not something you can blithely ignore. If you wish."

"Er—"

The blatant implication that he'd ignored something that was crucial to Draco's health didn't sit well with Harry. The air of forgiveness on Snape's part suited him even less. He frowned mulishly in Snape's direction and tried again to capture Madame Pomfrey's attention, but she was busy at a metal-topped table cluttered with vials and jars. Only Hermione was watching and she was quite obviously keeping a close rein on herself.

"Narcissa is, of course, the obvious choice for Draco's representative—" Snape's voice droned on and on, endless meaningless words out of context buzzing like contrary bees 'round Harry's head. It annoyed him—he knew, he knew, something disastrous had been only narrowly averted…and something equally horrible had continued on unabated and--and happened.

"_Poppy_—"

Harry was of the opinion that no one was paying sufficient attention to his beleaguered beloved and he roused his achy, wrung-out self at last, keeping a careful arm around Draco and settling him more firmly against his chest as he shifted up on one elbow.

"It's alright, Harry," the matronly witch interrupted Snape's endless nattering, gripping his upper arm and pushing him back down against the mattress when he would've struggled fully upright. "Just stay right where you are, please. That's exactly what your young man needs, you by him."

"Poppy!"

"Yes, Harry, do listen to Madame Pomfrey," Hermione admonished.

"Now, you'll be feeling quite sleepy, Harry, and that's to be expected, so—" Pomfrey prattled on, till Harry, increasingly irritable, took his turn interrupting her.

"Oh—for Merlin's Sake. Severus!" Harry turned his head sharply to capture the level gaze of his old Potions teacher, who could be at least relied on not to coddle him.

"What in Merlin's Name is going on here, Sev? Just tell me!"

"Miscarriage, Potter," Snape answered succinctly. "Draco's miscarriage. I was just advising you, had you paid proper attention, that it's imperative to follow the proper procedure if you wish to produce offspring. You are both Wizards, Potter—it's different."

"So, tell me!"

"Headmaster, I don't think Harry's even _realized_—" That was Hermione, leaping to Harry's defense as always.

Snape snorted.

"Well, whether he did or didn't, that's beside the point, Ms. Granger. In the future, I'm sure they'll both be more than willing to follow the proscribed methods. We wouldn't want this to happen again."

"_Yes_," Harry bit out, the leash on his temper well frayed and slipping fast. "We _will_, I assure you. Absolutely. Especially if _someone_ will tell me exactly what they are so that we_ know_—for the future."

Severus wasted no time getting down to the nitty-gritty details.

"There's a particular bonding ritual used, Potter, for male Wizards who wish to procreate. This is nothing neither new nor unusual; had you paid any attention to Binn's class, you'd know. However—"

"Assume I didn't. And this ritual is?"

Draco stirred, murmuring fretfully. Harry immediately smoothed a sweaty palm over his hair, settling him carefully back down into the curve of neck and shoulder.

"Actually," Madame interjected. "It would be better if you took off your things, Harry. Bare skin is best for ailments like this," Madame directed. "If you'll unbutton, I'll help you."

Harry pressed his lips together at yet another interruption but made no demur. Judging from his restlessness, Draco needed something that he wasn't getting and Harry could tell, even if he didn't have Poppy's medical experience at his fingertips, that body heat would be very beneficial to his lover's chilled skin.

The witch was already by his side, deft fingers in motion. His robes were carefully eased from his upper body, first one arm and then the other. The button-down, high-collared green shirt he wore underneath was shucked off as well, awkwardly; a serious-looking, silent Hermione helping to keep his unimportant dignity intact. Harry's trousers were next, narrow belt unbuckled one-handed and the lightweight wool shimmied down his hips with Poppy and Snape aiding in keeping a thin blanket tented over both his lower extremities and Draco's near nakedness in a somewhat pointless bow at modesty. It wasn't as if both Snape and Pomfrey hadn't seen he and Draco after numerous run-ins in Quidditch and even more numerous—and much bloodier—skirmishes with Death Eaters. Hermione, though she was just as accustomed to seeing a half-clad Harry after their months of enforced camping, averted her eyes politely.

But the Headmaster did not cease his explanations despite his obvious embarrassment at facing Harry en deshabille, something a woozy, anxious Harry was doubly grateful for.

"Wizards are a small population, Harry," Snape was saying, eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling. "There have never been very many of us—in fact, there are far more now than ever before with the recent explosion of the world birth rate. But before we had the benefit of the geometric escalation of the Muggleborn population, we Wizards were few and far between. Thus, the ancients had to use every method available to preserve their magic and pass it on intact to their heirs, and then invent additional means when the usual methods weren't sufficient."

Harry nodded awkwardly, one leg up as Hermione fiddled with a shoelace, an arm cocked at a weird angle so as to allow Pomfrey access to the studs in his cuff. He turned his protesting body to fit Draco more closely against it, relishing in the heat spreading gradually across that cool, pale skin, and could literally feel the tension trickling out of the unconscious man in his arms. He heaved a silent breath of relief at it, staying still as he could under the other's ministrations, but never letting go of Draco as he contorted himself further during the removal of skivvies, socks and shoes, a laborious process and abysmally lengthy with Snape overseeing it and clearly not happy at the lack of privacy.

"One of the oldest Magicks for this purpose is the Ritual," Snape went on, never stopping, "or what amounts to male pregnancy. There is a similar Ritual for female partners but, as they are by nature equipped to bear children naturally, it is not as involved. To continue, as a result of its necessity and longevity and for the majority of its long history, the practice has _not_ been held in any disrepute, despite what Muggleborns may claim, and it's really only recently that the Muggle world's prejudices against homosexuals has spilt over into the Wizarding world and tainted it."

"Um," Harry mumbled to show his attention. "Point being?" He didn't really care so much about the history, although if it was important—

"There!" Poppy smiled when the task of garment removal was finally complete and both he and Draco were both tucked up under extra blankets. Draco had shivered uncontrollably every time Harry had leaned away even fractionally, shuffling at fabric and inching it off him, and Harry was wrapped back around him at last with all the fervor of the Giant Squid clutching at a very nice morsel.

"Much better now you're settled in, isn't it, dear?" Poppy apparently had no problem with barging into Snape's ad hoc lectures. Harry grinned momentarily at her cheek, but then his overweening worry for Draco surged back and wiped the faint humor of the situation from his mind like a wet eraser over a chalkboard.

"Time for more detailed explanations, I think," Pomfrey pointed out, unnecessarily, Harry thought. Snape was right in the midst of those, wasn't he?

"Severus, since you've already started?" Pomfrey raised a commanding eyebrow at the Headmaster, who brought an end to his careful examination of the wall tiles and door frame.

"Right, then." Hermione took this as her cue and stood up as well, turning to the door. "Time, too, I think, for me to get back to work. You certainly don't need me for this part. Harry, you'll be alright here?"

"Um, sure, I guess?" Harry looked to Pomfrey, who nodded and twinkled, and then glanced fleeting over at the gravely attentive Headmaster, momentarily silenced, who nodded as well. "Yeah—thanks, Hermione. I'll, erm, be in touch. Later."

"Not a problem, Harry. Any time. Take good care of him, alright?"

She ruffled Draco's ice-white pate with fond affection as she stepped away from the narrow infirmary bed, leaving Snape and Pomfrey like territorial guard dogs on either side of it.

"I'll leave you two in good hands, then, and check back tomorrow. And don't fret—I'll speak to the rest of them, Harry; let them know what's going on and to leave you in peace for a bit. Just listen to Madame and the Headmaster and make sure to have a sleep. You'll be needing it."

She nodded in the direction of the concerned voices murmuring outside the door, the number apparently swollen by additional Weasleys, Neville, Luna and what sounded remarkably like the deep timbre of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Gods! Even the Aurors were present and accounted for! Harry blushed and then swallowed back another loopy grin at the idea of Kingsley in a midwife's cap and apron.

He was feeling rather lightheaded, he knew that, and needed desperately to focus.

"Yeah. Thanks again, Hermione," Harry gabbled, green eyes already swiveling back to Snape's long-suffering 'patient' face. "Now, Sev—"

"I'll order tea," Poppy interjected brightly, "for shock, you know, Headmaster—yours, as Harry needs sleep rather more—and escort you out, Hermione. A few minor details to go over and I must speak to Mrs. Malfoy—"

The door thudded closed, having been opened only the exact amount necessary to ease Pomfrey's larger bulk through it after Hermione's neat departure. A babble of voices swelled behind it for a half-second and was then cut off cleanly by the snick of the latch.

It was very quiet in the little examination room, Draco's hushed breathing being perhaps the loudest thing, but Snape didn't immediately jump back into his stream of words. He inhaled sharply instead and faced Harry head-on, his dark eyes sad and quite, quite serious.

"I'm…sorry, Harry. I can't begin to tell you how much."

Harry thrust a hand out, rather blindly as his tired eyes were in the process of closing again and despite the drowning pull of that maddening, enthralling exhaustion, he suddenly wanted to sob his heart out over the unborn child he and Draco hadn't even known existed—would never know, now—and Snape gripped it and held it carefully within his own warm, lined palms. It had been a long and difficult journey from perpetually irate Potions Master to grudging mentor to unofficial godfather, but all the affection a teenaged Harry had ever felt for Sirius was more than present and accounted for in that firm hand clasp.

"Yeah…thanks."

After a long moment, Snape let his hand go and Harry tucked it around Draco's middle carefully, rubbing soothing circles against the slowly warming skin.

"To continue, then," the Headmaster's voice was once again a dry, pedantic thing, and thus weirdly comforting. Harry could practically feel the memories of the hard wooden bench under his bum and the shabby, much-chewed quill in his hand racing madly across the parchment as ex-Potions Master Snape entered full lecture mode.

"The male body is _not _designed for conception and so forth as is a woman's, as should be self-evident, Potter, and thus historically both spells and potions have always been used allow a potential male parent to accomplish such things. Fortunately, there are point-to-point similarities sufficient in the physiologies and anatomies of male and female forms to allow a modified Purpose Spell to er—rearrange organs and whatnot, and create not only the fetus, but also the correct containment device, similar to a uterus, but not…but _only_ in exactly controlled environments and _with_ the knowledgeable addition of fluids, nutrients and a worry-free atmosphere."

Harry's brows jerked upwards ever so slightly. Draco had been anything but 'worry-free' these last few months; even he, still a novice in his own mind at reading all the tiny quirks and half-sentences of Malfoy body language, had clued in on that. Harry wasn't the teaspoon Ron was, true, but there'd been peace and harmony between he and Draco Malfoy for such a very long a time now—years, even—and he'd gotten a tad lazy at reading danger signs when there weren't any.

He could flail endlessly himself for that later; right now he needed to pay attention to Severus's lecture so this never had to happen again.

"The last is crucial, Potter," Snape pointed out, sweeping a careless hand to emphasize. "The Ritual's Repurposement Spell requires an explicit Binding to function properly and even if a particular blood-line is predisposed genetically to allow for male reproduction, without the blood Binding and the familial recognition that accompanies it, the child will be lost."

"Wait a minute," Harry said slowly, his mind ticking like a watchwork drenched in treacle. "All those bouts of flu he had—"

"Exactly," Snape nodded and for a moment his face was very dark indeed. "As I mentioned, some, if not most, of what you'd call the 'pureblood' families are now predisposed genetically to allow for male pregnancy. It's been bred into them, actually, much as the Muggles have bred horses to run faster or dogs to have longer ears. The ones that are more accepting of the Repurposement are then more likely to reproduce Heirs with magical resources than would those who've not the wherewithal nor innate power to use such methods and thus genetics wins out for the wealthier purebloods in that matter, at least. But that alone that isn't enough—the Spell must be in place before conception, the body supplemented magically and the Binding between families resolute and unbreakable. Both partners must be fully cognizant, as must their relatives. You and Draco, apparently, have achieved a few of these pre-conditions without being aware of it—"

"I gave him cufflinks and the earring…that necklace…" Harry's mind was whirring away at top speed, collecting the minute stuff of data, the half-writ lines of proof. "Narcissa loves me like her own son."

"Yes. Yes, you did, Potter. And she does. And it is indisputable that both of you are quite powerful Wizards; Draco, alone, is likely of the level to sustain the significant strain the Repurposement Spell has on Wizard's body even without the usual supplements. But not one of these individual aspects constitutes an actual Binding. And as you have not formally approached either his mother or myself, as his godfather, for permission and acknowledgement, and as you yourself have no living relatives or guardians—"

"So, even if he'd wanted to; even if he'd _realized_—"

"There's no official substitute for _that_, Potter. The Ritual and its Bond has to be acknowledged by both families or the Repurposement Spell will not take. It is a serious matter, the making of an Heir. Acknowledgement is its own safeguard. No family wishes to endanger itself physically or materially by accomplishing only half a Ritual, especially in when the pair involved are likely the sole Heirs. The cost is too great. Wizards die doing this."

"Every damned year, then—oh, Merlin, Sev!" Harry fretted, holding Draco even closer. "Every year he's been—"

"_No_. No, Harry. I don't believe so."

Snape actually claimed Harry's hand again and patted it, his dry smooth skin a soothing brush across a perspiring palm.

"It was only the flu the first few years, Potter. Draco's always been prone to it, especially with the last several winters being as raw as they've been. An incomplete Ritual had nothing to do with it—nor with _you_, Harry. And you must keep in mind that although Wizard folk typically marry and bear children at a very young age, men are different when it comes to child-rearing. The teenage male body just doesn't have the pelvic elasticity or the broader bearing that a female or a fully-mature man has. A gentleman must be at least in his early twenties for a Ritual to be conducted successfully and well shed of what I like to think of as the 'puppy' stage."

"Good. T-That's _good_…right, Sev? That's bloody brilliant, isn't it? I mean, if I—if he. I could've lost—"

"It's immaterial, Potter." Severus's sharp tone cut across the baleful swell of Harry's dread like a well-placed knife slice, deflating it.

"It didn't happen that way—and it won't, now that all the preventative steps have been taken. You _know_, Potter. Draco knows, or will, when Poppy refreshes his memory. My godson will likely walk out of here tomorrow or the next day, perfectly healthy."

"Severus."

"And you two young fools will be able to inflict your spawn on the rest of us in the not too distant future; I'm sure of it. There's nothing to concern yourself with, Potter. Not now. The only point—"

Harry 's eyes were nearly closed again; Snape's aura of authority had always rankled him in the past. Now, it was a fatherly hand round his shivery shoulders, a warm, protective mantle on a cold night. How things did change.

"Sev…"

"—that _I_ can think of that's worth actual discussion, is when, precisely, you plan to officially conduct the Ritual with my godson. I'm positive Narcissa has that very same question in mind, aren't you?"

Green eyes flashed very wide and aware for a brief second before Harry heaved a beleaguered sigh and shut them tight against the vision of his future mother-in-law, fussing. Snape fussing. Molly fussing. Draco in shock.

"Salazar, Sev. Don't remind me—and she's right outside the door, isn't she?"

Snape nodded, thin lips quirking into an odd shape that Harry knew was actually a smile. He spared a nanosecond's thought to the purely tangential observation that Snape smiled more than now than he had for most of the years Harry had known him, and mused on why that might be—till the waves of fuzzy matter threatened to claim him once more.

"You know…Sev," Harry muttered, nosing his face happily into Draco's fine hair and blowing stray tendrils when they crept into his barely open mouth. "M'not ready yet."

"Ah?"

"We, um…we jus' discussed it…mmm, Saturday last…" Harry trailed off, yawning, and settled the covers even more closely about his lover's shoulders. And his own. He loved cuddling.

"Gods, 'M'soo tired—Salazar, Sev, so freakin' tired. An'...an' not…ready yet."

"Oh?" Yes, that was a thin thread of disappointment he detected in Snape's monosyllabic responses. Not surprising at all, Harry thought, considering how intensely overprotective his Draco's godfather was. He was lucky to have lived as long as he had, shagging Draco under Sev's very large nose. Bits intact.

Harry licked his dry lips, half-frowning, half-grinning, nearly entirely hidden under the comforting blanket of sleep his body craved so badly, and shut his half-lidded eyes completely, blocking Snape's sour demeanor out. Darkness descended abruptly, a beast waiting impatiently; the last thing Harry remembered clearly was valiantly attempting to tell Snape was why this was so—why he wanted to wait, when his beautiful Draco was apparently more than willing and ready.

"…y'see…I jus'…want him to m'self," Harry drooled scattered syllables into his pillow and the Headmaster had to lean very close to discern Potter's meaning.

"Selfish," Harry informed Draco's shining hair and his dreamy recollection of Severus's stern face, "...for a little…longer, Sev. Don' wanna share 'im jus' yet."

"Ah. Yes, Potter," the Headmaster replied very quietly after a significant pause, the weird excuse for a smile returning to his severe features. "You always were…lamentably selfish. But understandably so, in this case."

But Harry didn't hear him, and thus felt no further need to defend his demonstrably narrow-minded view that Draco Malfoy should be his, and his alone.


	11. Chapter 11

HP Theorem: Combustion

Movement 10: Expressivo

"I think it's perfectly reasonable if I don't like you any more…Harry."

This was offered in a very hushed but purely conversational tone, as if Draco were merely observing on the probable condition of the Quidditch pitch after the spring rains. In a whisper.

"Given that it's almost entirely _your_ fault this whole disaster has happened, and I—_I_ was so foolish,"

Draco's voice cracked mid-sentence. He swallowed so hard Harry heard both the chokehold tightness and the saliva ekeing past it and very nearly opened his eyes.

"So…foolish as to get myself in hot water on your behalf, Harry, as always. Rushing headlong like that—it's not _me_, Harry. It's not—but."

_Draco. _

_No_, Harry decided, not entirely sure whether this conversation—monologue—was the product of a dream. He'd been exhausted beyond belief last night and this morning was not much better, judging by the way his back was racked and his head was aching.

"To want that—you know, it must've been _me_, Harry. Risking us, again—and then to be so damned careless as to lose—just because _I _wanted, must've wanted."

_No_, Harry determined, that was not the usual 'Draco voice' at all. This one was much tighter, with high taut notes reeding through it and a scattering of gavelly, husky undertones. His lover sounded rather as though he were trying very hard not to break down.

_Draco_, Harry thought, and nudged his face harder into the smooth slope of Draco's upper arm, forcing comfort to flow through his scarred forehead somehow and infuse that expanse of chilled skin. _Stop._

_Don't do this. _But how does one mouth useless drivel when one feels the same?

"Things I shouldn't even have, Harry. Things I don't deserve. Not yet, anyway. I wouldn't make a very good parent, I know that—can't even be arsed take care of myself, can I? And you don't want it; I know you don't want it, even if you say you might, one day. But you make_ me _want…them…anyway; you _do_. Just by fucking breathing, Harry, you make me want and want and want. I don't even think you realize just _how_ much—I'm _so _sorry, Harry. _So _sorry. I was an idiot."

Definitely a sob this time, swallowed back.

_Draco—stop!_

"But you must see that it was _you_, Harry, that made me…need things. That it's always _you_, Harry, for me. So—so you shouldn't let me, Harry. You shouldn't even say that you'd consider it, because I might believe you—and that's fucking foolish on my part."

A hard breath was taken—reeled in, like a fighting carp. Harry could hear it whooshing past his ear, inflating Draco's lungs, denting the pillow. The blanket trembled slightly as if fingernails were clenched in it, twisting.

"Foolish and idiotic, to try to give you a family, Harry, that you don't even want. Because that must be it, y'see—the only reason I'd ever do something so short-sighted is because of _you_. _I _certainly don't need anything else, Harry, not while you're with me, but you—_you_ do. Stupid git."

_Please, Draco._ Harry winced as if he'd been bitten by an angry Thestral and turned his head slightly into the flattened out pillow in an effort to hide it. _Don't._

"Oh, but—I'm lying again, aren't I? Not to be trusted; not _me_. You're not the one who's the bloody bastard in this whole mess—_I _am. Because I do want it, Harry—everything I can have and all the things I can't have and that's _your_ fault, you git—all _your_ fault, Harry."

There, ever so faintly, Harry's bird's nest of a morning hairdo stirred beneath a shaky exhalation; lover's lips, stretched thin and bitten to shreds in an effort to keep grey eyes dry, laid ever so gently across a mass of silken strands…to bury a wish.

"Harry. _My_ Harry still. I hope."

And there the unfamiliar voice stopped, and the body that shivered against his shifted infinitesimally, and it didn't seem as if it would start again, no matter how long or how hard Harry might feign sleep.

"All…right," Harry agreed instantaneously, eyes snapping open to find Draco's gaze steadily fixed upon him.

He felt helpless beneath it; they were _both _idiots, by Salazar, for not seeing where such 'wants', such 'needs'—for Harry had them, too, and had been just as much of a fool and fuckwit not to say it plainly when he'd had the perfect opportunity—would all this would lead them to, impelling them forcefully down the path they were already walking. The silver grey haze that lingered over his face, though, was in direct contradiction to Malfoy's opening volley—_not_ casual, _not_ blaming. No, a thousand unspoken words were contained therein: veritable paragraphs of Draco's despair and anger, poems of acrid guilt dedicated to his own lack of foresight, a fragile refrain of hope-against-hope that Harry might yet forgive Draco this additional trespass, a proclamation of the innate courage that would continue to call upon him to risk everything and anything—for Harry's sake—unprepared and unbidden and even, Merlin forfend, _unwelcome_.

_Oh, Draco!_

Harry didn't know how to stop this—this blatant stupidity on both their parts. He didn't know what to say or how to begin saying it and the hole in his head where the right words should be slayed him.

"I," Harry started. "We—"

_Stop-stop-stop!_

The blonde's fingers were plucking nervously at the coverlet and his pale eyes were weary and red-rimmed, still one blink away from spilling over. This, Harry noted, from a man so self-possessed he almost never cried; who, like Harry, kept all that was vulnerable tightly packed up inside him, who was nearly legendary for spare with every emotion except passion and humour, and only let the unwieldy ones out when Harry required them, needed them, knowing or not.

This, from a man so generous he would gladly assume all the blame and all the guilt, and let Harry go scot-free if he could; who would lay himself bare for the flaying if Harry was angry, and endure it silently if Harry was cold.

All this Harry saw and heard, communicated in half-finished sentences and the tight, white lines round his lover's mouth and the shifting colors in eyes others still perceived as flat and cold and empty, and was consequently both incredibly grateful for the forgiveness he hadn't even the chance to decide if he was worthy enough to grovel for, and the unerring willingness on Draco Malfoy's part to shield him as much as he could from the tragedy they could've averted so very easily—if only they'd known.

But now they _did_ know, and it _had_ happened—the worst was already over, leaving them both the poorer for the loss of a child they would've lived and loved and readily died for, had they but been aware of its precarious existence. It was suddenly very clear to Harry that the time was more than ripe to offer up what he'd always been hesitant to lay on the table, for fear that such a momentous weight would be too heavy for Draco, or that such a greedy, self-serving demand solely for his own benefit would be too constraining for a relationship that had flourished well and long without any need for a stable planter or the circumscribed boundaries of a supportive trellis.

But freefall and no boundaries weren't what he wanted, not now, and not at all what Draco needed, and it was with blinding clarity that it came to a struggling Harry exactly what _was_ needed and wanted right now, on the morning after, on the cusp of everything else. They had not required a child to tie them together; no—nor would any future children be forced to that purpose; they were simply in need of each other, as always. And that particular wheel had already been invented. Harry just had to give it a little push to start it rolling.

"Draco. I, er, would like it very much if you would give me the honor of your, um," Harry hurried on to shove the fateful words out, balls to the wall and vastly determined. "Hand-in-marriage. Er."

"Alright," Malfoy replied quickly. Far too quickly. He blinked again, rapidly, the haze gradually resolving.

"If…if _you _want to."

Draco looked down, probably to hide whatever emotion was surging through the cloud-cover, and examined the fold of the coverlet very carefully, but the pleased color on his pale cheeks rose up to meet Harry like a smile.

"I _do_," Harry replied, just as quickly, his hand gripping Draco's upper arm with force enough to bruise. He shoved it a bit, wanting Draco's gaze back.

"I do. So…alright with you, then?"

Harry's personal gift horse obliged, shifted his grey eyes to stare wide-eyed and wondering at Harry's still-moving lips, forming tentatively around the end of the second—and final—reiteration of the all-important question. This was the one that really would hammer the nails into their mutual illusion of freedom; effectively cast their lives in the eternal stone of a shared grave marker; braid their half-seen hopes and dreams and wishes into a blood-bound knot that could never be untangled.

_This was it_, Harry knew, and stopped breathing altogether.

"Yes."

Layer upon layer of longing and adoration and a love so strong it overcame any sane objection was suddenly stripped clean of the usual Malfoy reserve, and laid evident in all its glory to Harry's near-sighted view, and it was very entrancing indeed, in Harry's humble opinion, to see a Look like That on his pillow, first thing in the morning. If, as he fondly believed, the sun rose and set in the confines of his long-time lover, this was a brilliant dawn of the like he'd never been privileged to witness before, better even than Draco's first mumbled and very red-faced 'Uh—love you'.

A clear-cut, positive response was telegraphed back; no interference, no question whatsoever on Malfoy's part. "_Yes_."

Having successfully proposed marriage and settled their future—as if that had ever been in question—Harry moved on to other immediate things, purely by instinct.

"Er—" he pointed out, nudging his morning erection up against Draco's hip. He rather felt like singing, which was odd, as he didn't normally—or at least, not till he was firmly ensconced in his morning shower.

"Not yet, sorry," and Draco did seem genuinely disappointed. "We should probably wait on that till Poppy gives us the all-clear."

"Right," Harry responded, trying to calm the slap-happy zing of champagne bubbles in his midsection, the thunder welling in his ears. The mundane called, when all he wanted to do shag and be shagged, but that was just the way life was, right?

"Breakfast, then. You must be famished."

Draco nodded, shy all at once, and trailed a finger down the incline of Harry's nose. Testing, perhaps, its reality. Harry angled his chin just right, seeking, and placed a glancing kiss on that fingertip as it slid by. He was immediately treated to another dose of That New Look.

Invigorating, it was; a tonic for anything and everything that might ail him.

Harry grinned and indulged himself in a lingering mouth-to-mouth with the heartbreakingly lovely man in his bed, wallowing in the fact that he could bloody well _feel _Draco, so he was finally sure the night's danger was well past. He could _breathe_ Draco, so it was blindingly evident he'd been forgiven for being an oblivious prat and all-around fuckwit. He could _taste_ him on his lips still, all the flavors: the feather-light kiss that had woken him, the ocean of delight that washed through every sense he had and some more eldritch ones he couldn't consciously account for—and Harry _knew_ the whole horrible, difficult matter was all wrapped up and finished except the shouting. And now it was time for the shouting.

Harry braced his shoulders and got out of bed. _Their _bed.


	12. Chapter 12

HP Theorem: Combustion

Movement 11: Staccato

"Brilliant," said Harry, and stroked Draco's hair again. He had a befuddled look on his face, but that was acceptable, even encouraged, if Narcissa's warm glances were anything to go by.

"Excellent. Christmas then and that gives me six months to pull this together. Draco, I'm going to need your input on flowers and hors d'oeuvres and then seating—seating is very important; I don't need to remind you."

"Yes, Mum," Draco replied, but he only had eyes for Harry and his fingers were playing hooky when they should've been writing up guest lists.

*

"Brilliant," Harry said flatly, presented a month later with a battle plan—um, organizational flow chart of the events of the upcoming Ritual ceremony, as per self-proclaimed 'weddingnista' Narcissa Malfoy, and as augmented by various female Weasleys, and other interested parties. There were a great many interested parties, apparently. Some of them were Ravenclaws and some were the dreaded Hufflepuffs, which was probably why there were to be white doves and a bubble fountain in addition to the usual daggers, potions and cake.

"Draco?"

Appalled, Harry dumped the whole business into his future helpmeet's lap and bowed out of the sordid details, albeit silently. Self-preservation was the name of the game at this point and he only wanted to make his affianced happy. He sincerely hoped having everything short of performing elephants and the reigning British monarch present at their Solstice ceremony would serve to make Draco happy, as that seemed to be the order of the day.

"We're already late for our appointment with the realty agent, Mum. I trust you—" Narcissa's expression said 'of course you do, darling, or I'll know what for', "—so plan whatever you see fit, hmm? I'm sure we'll be delighted. Right, Harry?"

Draco was rattled; he had rings in his pocket; there were five different houses to examine in Hogsmeade and tonight was the night of the first official part of the Ritual—well, second. Harry's Letter to his Mum was the first.

"Right," Harry replied, and forced himself to remove his hands from Draco's bottom. "Brilliant."

If Potter backed out now, Malfoy decided, dragging his distracted 'significant other' along by one arm, he'd fucking string the shrimpy little bastard from the Astronomy Tower by his 'nads.

Harry would_ not_ back out now, and Draco knew that surely as he knew his mother was over the moon with the thought of little Malploys in the eventual offing and a full-blown no-expense-spared extravaganza to organize and execute flawlessly first.

**

None of the Hogsmeade houses shown them were in the slightest bit acceptable but they had to choose one eventually. Both Harry and Draco would need a home outside the halls of Hogwarts for entertaining various academic honorables and the ever-present Weasleys and the occasional Slytherin who ventured back to his or her old stomping ground on the slim excuse to hobnob with Draco (but really to eyeball Malfoy snogging Potter in what would be their exceptionally well-equipped kitchen.)

Draco sighed over the necessity of having yet another property to maintain and pay taxes on—between the Muggle government and the Ministry, he was being bled dry of Galleons—but then they needed this one far more than they needed to retain the second flat in town.

Holding hands—they did this all the time now and it was as soppy as anything—they booked another appointment for the following weekend and wandered off to the inn for a pint, making mooncalf eyes at each other.

Harry would've sooner sold Grimauld Place than his bachelor flat but Malfoy put his well-shod foot down; an Heir would need an entailment and the Ancient and Honorable House of Black must retain the formal Seat. Harry had no other Estates, per se; the Potter properties had long since disappeared into the maul of the previous Ministries' back-tax collection machinery or then again they might've been subsumed by opportunistic Death Eaters after the first rise of Voldemort. Harry, for one, neither knew of nor particularly cared about their disposition, given that his unofficial betrothed had plenty of entailed acres, here and abroad (very abroad; there was a winery in New Zealand and a cattle ranch in Brazil), and then some, and their various Heirs would have more than enough Estate to inherit without squabbling.

They stopped for a quickie at the Shack before returning to Hogwarts for dinner, and Malfoy was persuaded to allow Harry to keep his old flat, just for giggles. Or at least to cease his infernal complaining.

*

At precisely eleven o'clock that same evening, Harry Potter was announced by one of the more ancient house elves and entered the most formal of the drawing rooms at Malfoy Manor. Already present in the enormous room were Narcissa Malfoy, clad in exquisite robes of silver and mauve; Severus Snape, severely resplendent in his official Hogwarts Headmaster's regalia, and Draco Malfoy, head of the House of Gryffindor, his slim form for once not in elegant scarlet and gold, but outlined by forest green silk brocaded robes, embellished with trim of blackest sable, and laced tight up the chest with spun silver threads wrapped 'round golden cording.

Narcissa was seated in a large armchair, a throne-like and hulking piece of gold-leafed furniture with a distinctly Egyptian flavor; Draco, also seated in similar state, was stationed to her right; and Snape, his expression still and serious, was a step or two behind mother and son and to the Mistress's left, standing straight-shouldered with his hands clasped tightly behind him.

Harry, himself, had brushed up very nicely in the intervening hours, and was sporting his head of Slytherin House colors of silver and green in robes of Italian watered silk and embroidered Turkish velvet, the hues and delicate nuances of which complimented his eyes and played up the blue-black lights in his hair. He carried a candle, a single white pillar of beeswax, and a small velvet drawstring pouch.

Upon entering, Potter bowed almost immediately, a low, sweepingly elegant arch of spine and extended arms, one crooked across his trim waist as was polite, one bearing the candle held high above his head, flame unwavering, and proceeded to address himself solely to Narcissa Malfoy, his gaze never straying once to the handsome blonde man stiff and blank-faced beside her or the dark and saturnine Wizard who stood guard just behind.

"Madame."

"Sir," she returned equably, nodding ever so slightly.

"I, Harry James Potter, Heir and Lord of the Houses of Black and Potter, present myself with the intention of requesting the hand and heart of your Heir in Ritual," Harry stated, his voice both soft and clear enough to carry 'round the entirety of the enormous room, even if it had been filled to capacity with murmuring guests. Which, thankfully, it was not.

"As your Letter of Intent has promised, my lord," Mrs. Malfoy responded.

"And, as promised in my Letter, by writ and by vow, I bring to you these gifts of my lands and my Houses in good faith, Lady. If, and only if, it doth please you to accept them on behalf of the Heir of Malfoy."

With that, Harry stepped forward and solemnly presented the drawstring pouch he carried to Narcissa. Eyes bright, she let it lay across her palm, her long fingernails caressing the gold and red figured velvet of the pouch ever so slightly. It clinked, faintly, and Narcissa smiled at the tiniest echoes of gold, granite, pearl and ruby nestled safely within. The tiny treasures would be entwined with the feathers of a phoenix and a Golden Snidget, the whole knotted intricately with Charms of protection and overlaid with a potent glaze made with three drops of Harry's blood—the Spell of Land-Law for his hereditary Houses.

The Price had been duly delivered and she had no need to examine it further to know it more than matched every expectation.

"I accept your gifts, my Lord, and present to you my Heir and the Lord of Malfoy, Draco Lucius Malfoy."

Paler than snow on the highlands, with grey eyes as dark as Harry had ever seen them, short of the last, gasping throes of passion, Draco inclined his head in a scant nod of acknowledgement and finally spoke.

"My Lord."

"A pleasure, My Lord Malfoy," Harry responded smoothly, and his eyes gleamed jade. A pleasure indeed, and he'd have it all within his grasp within the hour, and be honored to unlace the intriguing crisscrossed bonds that barely contained all that masculine pulchritude. At no point had anyone dared insist the Ritual was a bloodless, passionless institution. Quite the contrary.

Draco blushed, despite his best efforts not to, but he kept his eyes firmly forward.

"My Heir has expressed his desire and wish to join with you, Sir, in Ritual. Does that please your House still?" Narcissa's tone was calm and steady, but then she was very sure of the answer to her question.

"It doth please me beyond all measure, Lady, and provides to my Estates and bondsmen the greatest of honors. My tithes and villeins shall rejoice in our good fortune this eve."

As Harry's 'tithes and villeins' consisted of two house elves, one elderly and undeniably addled, the other hopelessly devoted to the point of idiocy, one ancient old house, grimly decorated, one blown-up cottage in an obscure little village, and a scrubby bachelor flat that likely hadn't been dusted since Kreacher's hurried departure to his and Draco's elegant two-story penthouse some years previous, Harry was hard pressed to quell his grin. But he did, as the Ritual required in all seriousness.

And he was very, very serious when it came to all things Malfoy.

Draco, aware that Harry's gaze was fully occupied with his mother, gradually forced his manicured fingernails to unclench from his knees. A similar drawstring bag was tucked up his sleeve by his wand and in a moment or two, he'd present it to his almost-but-not-quite formally betrothed, and with luck, be shed of the horribly plebian label of 'significant other'. There were very few greater joys he could conceive in that moment.

"And doth it please you, my Lord, to receive the Bonds of Ritual from my Heir, freely and without constraint?" Another question Narcissa knew the answer to, and her bright eyes danced with hidden joy.

"With gratitude, Lady, I would receive Lord Malfoy's Bond, and wear his favor on my sleeve in duel and battle, peace and prosperity, as mine own for all these days to come." With that, Harry turned on his heel and faced Draco Malfoy, his gaze finally fully resting on the man whose very existence completed him.

He did not smile, or grin foolishly, or do any of the silly things that he was wont to do behind closed doors to demonstrate his love and affection. He only waited, the candle steady before him, and let his long-beloved approach him.

Draco rose to his feet silently and graciously, and his knees were rock steady, betraying none of the nervousness that had plagued him since he'd dug the tiny jeweler's box out of his second-best smoking jacket a fortnight ago, his hands trembling uncontrollably. The rings had been polished again to a mirror brilliance, the stones winking and warm in their settings of platinum, and he'd recast every single Charm himself to ensure their sanctity.

He took one step and then another, forcing himself not to rush or hurry. There'd be time enough for that later, and he planned to capture his troublesome Gryffindor and thoroughly shag him into submission in revenge for this excruciatingly tense moment. No—in sheer exultation at his good fortune in being presented the only treasure he'd ever desired: Harry's heart.

Two feet; four; a yard and then the Malfoy Heir and Lord was face-to-face with the Heir and Lord of the Houses of Black and Potter, only a hand's-breadth between them at last, and slowly extracting the rings for the third formal act of the Ritual.

Harry never blinked those marvelous eyes of his; only watched him, a lion blandly surveying his conquest.

"With my hand and my heart, my lands and my holdings, my inalterable loyalty and my undying confidence in our future bond, I do offer these tokens as a symbol of the Ritual that has commenced between us, my Lord," Draco intoned, his lips bloodless and pale as the rest of him. He extended his hand, palm flat, and was vastly pleased it was perfectly steady.

"Do you accept them?"

Harry brought the candle's transparent flame level with tumble of platinum, ruby, emerald and diamond that lay in his lover's hand. The circlets shone suddenly in its clear illumination; brighter than mere shaped metal and tempered mineral had any earthly right to, but the colors held true and clear, and after a moment, Harry extinguished the flame.

"I do, my Lord, without reservation or fear, and offer you my hand and my heart, my lands and my holdings, my loyalty and my confidence in return."

Snape was suddenly very much apparent, falling into step at Draco's left. With a subtle swish of fabric and the scent of gardenia, Narcissa Malfoy glided into her ordained place at Draco's right. In her hand was a goblet, ornately carved and beaded, and full to the brim with a golden liquid.

"I have so witnessed the Beginning," Snape offered, and removed the spent candle from Harry's lax fingers.

"I have so witnessed the Beginning," Narcissa agreed, and brought the cup to Harry's lips.

He sipped and then drank deeply, gulping down half the contents before Narcissa removed the goblet. It was brought before Draco, who drained it in one long swallow, and neither Wizard blinked or glanced away or broke the haze of connection forming between them.

"With this ring, Draco," and Harry caught up the one set with rubies and pave diamonds and held it securely between the thumb and the forefinger of his wand hand, a binding as unending as a loop of infinity, a silver-gilt net sent to capture a glorious phoenix or a legendary feathered serpent, "I do plight mine troth and join with you in Ritual."

Draco brought his left hand up slowly—his wand hand—and had it clasped briefly between warm fingers and then it glittered with not one, but two rings—his Malfoy signet and the official symbol of his engagement.

"With this ring, Harry," and he sought Potter's hand as one might seize and cradle an infinitely desired object, or a beloved child, or a lover that could never be replaced or transplanted or forgotten, and eased the shining band of emerald and diamond firmly and surely to the juncture of broad, capable palm and musician's delicate finger, "I do plight mine troth and join with you in Ritual."

"I do so witness, upon the honor of the House of Snape and the Institution of Hogwarts, on behalf of the Ministry of Magic and the august Body of the Wizamgot," Snape stated, dark eyes steady and bright on the two hands pressed palm to palm before him, and somewhere in the Department of Records there appeared his words as they were spoken, duly sealed, in a Great Book, "the Commencement of the Ritual of the Lords Malfoy and Potter, both of sound mind and body, with the avowed intent of Binding upon the sacred Solstice Day, in this year of Merlin. May this Ritual be blessed by all gods, great and small."

In faraway London, the tiny Records room in the bowels of the Ministry was dusty and sodden with the dregs of ancient magic, and lit only by three white candles, sisters to the one now held solemnly by the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Three Lords stood waiting patiently for the next part of the Ritual and tried not to breath too deeply of the swirling currents that eddied endlessly through the cramped quarters, for fear they would come away altered.

"I do so witness, upon my honor as the Mistress of Malfoy, as a loyal daughter of the Ancient and Noble House of Black and a loving mother to Draco Lucius, my Lord Malfoy, before his Honor the Lord of the Houses of Black and Potter, the Ministry of Magic and the august Body of the Wizamgot, the Commencement," and here Narcissa's dulcet voice nearly faltered, but held firm, in the end, "of the Ritual of the Lords Potter and Malfoy, both of sound mind and body, with the avowed intent of Binding upon the sacred Solstice Day, in this year of Merlin. May this Ritual be blessed by all gods, great and small."

With a final flourish of an invisible quill, the Great Book slammed shut and Three Lords—the Minister, the Steward and the Seneschal—placed their hands and Rods of Office upon it and echoed the words:

"May this Ritual be blessed by all gods, great and small."

And the clock struck twelve, and the Lords Malfoy and Potter pressed their joined hands together even more firmly, fingertips atremble, Ritual rings vibrating where they met, palm to palm, knuckle to knuckle, pulse points in wrists pounding in unison, and dared not even to inhale, for it was truly Begun—

"Harry!"

Until Malfoy sobbed aloud his joy and hauled Harry Potter bodily against his splendid finery, snogging his enthusiastic lover utterly speechless before the amused and hastily averted eyes of his mother and his godfather.

And in London, Three Lords had a celebratory Firewhiskey or five at the Leakey and laid a discreet gentlemen's bet on whose surname—Potter or Malfoy—would be the ultimate winner.


	13. Chapter 13

HP Theorem Combustion Movement 12: Accelerando

Harry should've known it wouldn't be that easy.

"I am concerned, Harry," Narcissa said, and her lovely mouth was tight with it.

"Yes," Harry replied, because, of course, so was he.

There was always fallout, when it came to Draco. Months and months of nightmares after the defeat of Voldemort; silent tears that he would not admit to, and went to paranoid lengths to disguise. The abortive curl of fingers if Harry said or did something unthinking, some off-handed word that might signal to Draco, if absolutely no one else on the planet, that he was not as loved or as wanted as he needed to be. The habitual stillness that draped over Malfoy like an opaque veil and hid a simmering volcano of emotion; the sedimentary layers upon layers of cold, proud composure that was to all appearances metamorphically seamless unless one knew Draco Malfoy very well indeed.

Malfoy seldom slipped up. Never had; it was a Malfoy trait. Harry had to work hard to find his various vulnerabilities and it didn't make him feel particularly proud that he was one of them—and perhaps the greatest. Draco was not given to 'PDA's or any sort of overt displays of his affection, other than the occasional possessive snarl at Seamus, Oliver or Ron. For the most part, Draco kept his emotions tidy and strictly under wraps, and Harry was fine with that, as it made Draco feel comfortable. That wasn't to say that Draco wasn't an actor and all the world his stage; oh, no. He was perfectly fine with playing the 'lover' or even the 'fool', but it was clear to anyone who knew him that this was all simply an act.

It made life difficult for Harry, who loved him. And he should've known better: sorting out one of Draco's needs or hurts did not necessarily cure another. Draco had holes so large that even Harry had trouble finding their edges, and to draw them together so they'd heal properly was sometimes impossible. It was a measure of Harry's love that he always, always tried, and mostly succeeded.

*

"I have something to tell you, Potter."

Snape was grim and quiet-voiced, which was not unusual. Harry tried to be attentive, but he had a class beginning in the next half-hour and perhaps this wasn't the best time—

"And I'm quite sure you will not be pleased."

As a rule, Snape was always secretively triumphant when he did something that would make Harry 'unhappy'. Harry figured it must've had to do with his father, for Snape was actually a very sensitive man, and a gentle one. So he passed these little bouts of nastiness over these days and reminded himself firmly of all the help he'd received—unasked, and sometimes completely undeserving—from Snape over all the years he'd known him.

"Okay," Harry said equably. "Go on, then."

"You are in need of a family member or suitable stand-in for your Ritual, are you not?" Snape asked, and entirely rhetorically, Harry believed, as Snape knew better than he did that such was a requirement.

"Yes…?"

"I had offered, Potter; I regret to inform you I cannot, upon reflection, take on that responsibility."

"Why not?" Harry was alarmed—and very puzzled indeed. This was not like Snape at all; the man might be many things, but he always kept his promises.

"You have your Third Years, I believe, in twenty minutes or so?"

"Yes, but Snape, why—?" Harry didn't give a hoot about his Third Years at the moment; here was a mystery, and he needed it solved.

"I shall explain, Potter, but I'd prefer to do it at a time when you will be able to pay attention," Snape replied, sitting back in his Headmaster's chair. He seemed perfectly at ease and not at all triumphant he'd just casually thrown a spanner into the works. "You are aware, naturally, that that is a pet peeve of mine, and one you've often flouted."

"Look, Snape, why bring this up now if we can't even talk about it?" Harry interrupted, a touch of angry impatience threading into his voice. Games really weren't what was required, not when Snape was making such inflammatory statements about skiving out of _his_ Ritual. _Draco's_ Ritual, which was the real issue.

"All in good time, Potter."

Harry heaved an impatient huff. Sev could jerk him around if he wanted to, but it was up to Harry as to whether he actually allowed Snape's passing, playful mindfucks to get his goat. _Fine, fine_, Harry decided, and waved an impatient hand at his own impatience.

"Look, Severus, I'm going to assume there's a good reason for this—"

"Thank you so much, Potter," Snape chirped snippily.

"But I can't meet later today—you know my schedule; I've got a full day of lectures and another one of those dratted Proctor meetings right after. Draco wants me to go with tonight to meet up with Elinora. So, how exactly do you want to work this?"

Snape smiled, or rather skirted around one by curling a lip in a not-quite derogatory way.

"I imagine you can make an appointment, Potter, at your convenience, or," and here the older Wizard paused, perhaps for heavy-handed emphasis, as certainly he'd never presented a proposition such as the one that followed to Harry Potter, not in all the long years they'd been acquainted.

"Yes?" Harry prompted sharply, already standing up, settling his robes and gathering up his ever-present bookbag. "Or, Snape?"

"You may wish to avail yourself of a meal at my humble abode, Potter. Perhaps this very evening, in fact, if it is agreeable."

"Wha—?" Harry was stunned, quite as effectively as if Snape had leveled him with precisely that spell. "Severus!?"

"What?" Snape's saturnine eyebrows quirked and his upper lip twitched again, just on the left side. Harry thought his mentor rather resembled Crookshanks after a particular good catch. "Is it so surprising to be invited, Mr. Potter? Certainly I am not known for my extreme sociability, but even I have my moments, few and far between as they are. Now, would say, seven o'clock this evening be convenient for you?"

"Ah-er," Harry swallowed, thinking hard and fast about his imminent obligations—he was free, actually, though Draco—

"What _about_ Draco?" he asked, on that thought. "He's got a meeting with our Hogsmeade estate agent scheduled for half six—you know, Elinora Pease, the Savill's WonderGirl? We were just planning on having regular Staff Dinner and heading over—"

"You're excused, Potter, and Draco does not need to be present this evening. Another time, I think," Snape, too, stood, as the chime on his desk clock sounded. "would be better to invite the two of you. I trust you can manage to put off my godson with some reasonable explanation as to why you can't bother with yet another ridiculous tour of some poorly constructed Hogsmeade abode. At seven, then, Potter. I'll expect you here, in my office."

"Ah…er, alright?" Harry replied tentatively, his mind whirring almost visibly as it reviewed the quite unusual occasion of being invited to a friendly dinner at home by Severus Snape. That would be one for the Pensieve—or Draco would never believe him.

"Sure," he nodded, agreeably enough despite his sense of mild unreality.

"Then do pardon me, Potter. I've a meeting with an irate Hufflepuff parent next and must rush," Snape never rushed, so Harry had to smile at that.

"Mind you're not late to your own class, please." And Snape exited the room in his usual manner, billowing fusty black, and with an over-the-shoulder sneer that covered most situations.

"Right," still a bit stunned, Harry replied to the now empty office and then grinned at Dumbledore, who'd been observing all along, half-asleep but sporting his usual twinkle. He waved at his old Headmaster and all the others that weren't napping. "Catch you later, gentleman. Good day."

"Enjoy yourself, Harry," Dumbledore's voice followed him out. "And make sure to keep your mouth shut when you're chewing things over. No need for hasty puddings."

*

"No!" Draco had his head in the Floo in their sitting room and even his spine seemed displeased. "No! No! No! You imbecile woman! I've told you and told you—we need at least six bedrooms, if not twice that, and sufficient land for both a Pitch and a stable! How hard can this be, Elinora?"

"But Draco, honeee," the estate agent whined, reinforcing Harry's vague idea that all real estate agents called their clients 'Honey', "there just isn't anything like that available within leagues of Hogsmeade—you'd have to travel much farther south for that sort of property. Be reasonable! I can't show you what doesn't exist!"

"No—you look, Elinora," Draco bit out, clearly at the end of his rope. "I'm not wasting my time looking at another one of those pitiful Muggle boxes on Muggle postage stamps you dare call suitable housing! If there's nothing on the market, then find something decent that's not and offer the owners enough Galleons to get the Hells out, for Salazar's Sake! Have you never heard of negotiation?"

Harry shrugged and ducked through to the bedroom, not wanting to know why Draco was Flooing their agent when he was meeting her face-to-face in town in less than two hours. There were mysteries to life that he required no knowledge of.

Whatever. He needed a quick wash-up and a change of clothes, and likely fairly formal attire, given that it was Snape inviting him. Harry goggled again at that thought.

_And_ he needed to duck before Draco asking him interesting questions, such as what his plans were whilst Draco was occupied with berating Elinora in person and why he was avoiding the difficult subject of their future shared dwelling. Harry had the distinct impression Severus preferred it that way and, although he certainly didn't wish to outright lie to the man he planned to marry, there was no real harm in minor omission.

Plus, Harry thought, rather grimly, any topic to do with the Ritual that Snape actually warned him in advance of as being 'unpleasant' was not a topic he wished Draco to delve into. He had his hands full of Draco's hidden grief already; there was no way in all the Nine Hells he'd allow his betrothed to be further unsettled.

And, Harry determined, he really needed to get Draco out of this for a weekend or something—give them a chance to sort out Draco's emotions and reassure him that guilt over a circumstance he'd had no knowledge of and no control over was hardly the best way to heal. Harry wanted more children—not yet, of course, but sometime soon—and Draco needed to be able to consider that prospect without dread and self-directed hatred mucking things up.

Gods, but it was frustrating at times loving a Malfoy, Harry decided, and then spent his wash-up thinking of good excuses that wouldn't alert Draco's 'Harry radar' that something of portent was pending.

*

Promptly on the toll of seven bells, Harry knocked on the Headmaster's door. He and the gargoyle who guarded the hidden staircase had come to terms years ago, when Harry and Hogwarts had joined forces: no passwords were necessary for Harry Potter anywhere within school grounds or the massive complex of the building itself. This full access made life quite pleasant for Harry, but difficult indeed for unwary students—particularly Slytherin or Gryffindor students—who thought they were being remarkably clever, sneaking about.

Old Filch would be proud of him, Harry thought inconsequentially. Gah!

"Enter!" Snape commanded, and Harry did.

"Good evening, Severus," he said pleasantly, shifting the bottle of wine he'd summoned. He'd chosen a particular fine vintage from one of the Malfoy estates, and hoped it would go well with dinner. Further, he had on his best formal Head robes, the ones he used for important international seminars and such. Draco had departed just prior to him dressing, accepting that Harry had made plans to meet with an unhappy Seventh Year student in need of counseling, so that was that taken care of.

"Harry," Snape acknowledged him, and as well, the hour, which allowed them to refer to each other by something other than surnames or titles. "If you'll follow me, please," the dark-haired man requested, rising from his desk and capping his Biro.

He paced towards a simple iron-hinged wooden door, one of several in the room, which was no longer cluttered with Dumbledore's strangely scientific paraphernalia or the plaid-and-tartan gee-gaws Professor Emeritus and former Headmistress McGonagall was so fond of. Snape liked his office plain and business-like, and abhorred the 'unnecessary sprinkling of personal effects like so much undersea detritus, Potter', as he'd once remarked about the décor of Harry and Draco's Gibraltar drawing room.

Snape had always proved a rather difficult guest; Harry could only boggle at his likely behaviour as a host. It was nearly beyond his own overly active imagination to visualize the likely fare and dinner discussions a Snape who'd planned a meal about an 'unpleasant' concept connected to Harry and Draco's all-important Ritual might present.

"This way," the Headmaster directed, opening the business-like door, and Harry saw what looked to be a swirly blank space, which was oddly reflective in parts, much like a Muggle funhouse mirror. "Step through, Harry."

"What is this, exactly?" Harry started to ask, but Snape cut him off, already in process of answering his question in that same old reassuring deadpan manner of his.

"Modified Wizarding Space, Harry. To others, this appears to be a simple supply closet. For me, and a select few—" and here Harry got the impression he'd been handed a very great honor, of far more import than a simple Order of Merlin—"it leads directly to my home."

"Oh," Harry said, and found himself on the other side, gazing around a sitting room full of comfortable leather and plush-upholstered furniture, with worn, dark-hued rugs and a huge fireplace full of a large, cheery fire. There were books everywhere, in stacks and piles, and any number of tasseled cushions and built-in cabinets, all of dark, polished wood. The overwhelming impression was of comfort, and maleness, and ease.

"Welcome, Harry," Severus said softly, and placed a hand on Harry's elbow. "I have the honor," he paused, and Harry shot him a quick, curious glance, just taking in out of the corner of one eye that there was another person present—dark-haired, light-eyed, tallish, thin and pale—"of presenting you to my permanent house-guest and—well."

Severus's voice petered out, and he took a sharp, audible breath.

Harry whipped his head around to examine this other person—man, Wizard; certainly oddly familiar—and the world ceased to move forward, holding its collective breath, just as Harry dropped his newly clean-shaven jaw.

'Sirius Black," Snape swept his other hand out toward the man-who-no-longer-existed and Harry, had he been noticing, would've noted instantly that it trembled ever so slightly.

"Good evening, young man," smiled Sirius Black, approaching the two of them, a hand thrust out for the ritual shake. "Severus tells me you're called Harry Potter and you're a very great Wizarding Hero indeed. A pleasure to meet you at last, Harry."


	14. Chapter 14

_**Author's Note: **__Hello, and thanks for sticking with me all this time. This particular chapter is in honor of the mysterious '__**cw**__' (I read your comments and would love to respond, but cannot, given 's set up, my dear) and __**ura-hd**__, my two persistent readers. Thanks, guys—you make this all worthwhile and very pleasing. Your comments are a tonic._

_Moving on, I have a beta now and will be posting the cleaned-up versions of each chapter over the next week or so. Also, this fic is nearly at the end; there's only a little more to tell for this view/version of Harry & Draco. Sirius and Snape will wait for another fic; Sirius's importance here is mainly as a godfather to Harry, so, not to worry, no digressions off to into the atmosphere; 'just the facts, ma'am'. _

_You may have noticed that this vaguely follows the line of events set out in another fic of min, 'Lumos', and yes, it does. You can read that for the quickie version (yes, there is a happy ending), but then you'll miss out, won't you? My apologies for 30,000+ words to tell this one, but it just developed. And thanks again, all who've read; you are the best, putting up with my vagaries and oddities. _

_Ta! Tiger_

**HP Theorem Combustion Movement 13: Prestissimo**

Time slowed; Harry should've expected that. It had slowed to a grinding standstill when Sirius had died in front of him, an arm's length out of reach, all those years ago. It slowed now, and garbled words—there were some, coming in a hasty rush from the tall dark shadow of the Wizard beside him—and hazed images—an impossible Wizard, a much-beloved godfather, a handsome man, with long dark hair and eyes of grey like Draco's—to the point of unrecognizability.

Harry considered fainting, but he was beyond that point in his life. Staying conscious and upright wasn't particularly easy, but it was desirable, given that his elbow was in the clutches of a mad and devious traitor and he was likely confronting an Inferi.

"You're dead," he croaked, and sincerely wished his wand arm wasn't the one Snape was holding so tightly.

"No," Sirius replied, seeming rather apologetic about that. "Er?"

'No!" Snape interjected loudly, "He is _not_—and I've gone to a great deal of trouble to keep him that way, Potter, so you'd better stuff that hex you have on the tip of your tongue right back down your impetuous throat!"

Not letting go of Harry's arm for an instant, he gestured to the Inferi, who'd assumed a puzzled expression in the interim, and snapped commandingly at him. "You! Go sit down right now whilst I get this young fool under control! Over there—out of harm's way!"

Harry growled, a menacing rumble that filled his chest, his choking throat—of all the unexpected things, more so even than Snape nearly dying to save him, was Snape, raising the dead carcass of his much beloved godfather and tormenting—_torturing!_—him with it!

"I'll fucking kill you!" he snarled and turned to Snape with death in his green eyes.

"Oh, no, you won't, Potter!" Snape snarled back, his eyeteeth fully bared. There was a Body Bind on Harry before he could even begin to blink the red haze from his vision.

"Be seated!" Snape ordered, and shoved Harry into the nearest comfy armchair to ensure that he was. "_I'll_ speak and _you'll_ listen and then—and _only_ then, Potter—will I release you! And if you believe you can throw that Bind off, then you're a greater Wizard than even Dumbledore, Harry!"

"Severus?" Sirius Black opened his mouth. He, too, was seated in an armchair, one covered in a deep, dark Hunter green paisley, and he'd picked up a crystal goblet of wine from the tiny occasional table beside it. "Severus. Could it be that you haven't told him?"

Sirius swirled his glass between elegant fingers and appeared to be as far from an Inferi as one could get. He was pale, true, but his luxuriant raven's wing hair was glossy and his eyes were as bright as his last living relative's—Draco Malfoy, last of the Blood Blacks.

"I have not," Snape huffed, and pointed his wand straight at Harry's forehead, "and for good reason, you git."

Harry's eyes bulged and he struggled mightily against the Bind Severus had cast over him, but Snape was correct: the spell was excessively powerful and even Harry, with all his natural and death-of-Voldemort enhanced abilities, wasn't getting out of it quickly.

Besides, Sirius—_oh, gods!_ shrieked Harry's brain, _that's Sirius—that's Sirius!—_he looked _alive_. Really alive, not just as simulacrum could, or an Inferi, or a dream or a ghost come to chat via the Resurrection Stone. There was a thread pulled on the lapel of his smoking jacket, and his hair was falling into one eye just like Harry remembered—_there were a few grey hairs!—_and Harry could've sworn he'd just been winked at—and there was Snape, treating this—this vision as if he was a troublemaker and a nuisance! _How unreal was that?!_ Harry thought, and could make sense of _nothing_.

Nothing—_nothing_ but the fact that his very deceased godfather was _not_, to all signs and appearances, actually dead.

"Right, Harry," Snape interrupted Harry's mental gyrations with a very no-nonsense question. "Are you ready to listen?"

*

Draco sneered at Elinora, who was actually a gem of a Witch, despite everything, and sipped at the butterbeer she'd offered him.

"Now, why, Elinora," he asked, with a certain degree of sardonicism, "should I believe you when you say you've found the 'perfect' residence? Have you not said that before? And has not every single one of these so-called 'perfect' homes been either unsuitable, unbearable or—to put it plainly—undesirable?"

"Draco, honeee," Elinora grinned, whilst also managing to beseech a reluctant quirk of the lips from her most difficult client. "Because this one _is_. Perfect, I mean, and you'll adore it—mark my words," she foretold, reminding Draco of much more elegant and bubbly Trelawney.

"Hah!" Draco snorted elegantly. "Then, show me," he challenged the most effective and successful estate agent Savills Wizarding Scotland division had ever claimed for its ranks.

*

"Though it's likely less wearing simply to show you, Harry," Snape sighed, tucking his wand away and Summoning his own glass of wine. Harry's bottle lay discarded on the carpet before the door leading back to the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts, miraculously undamaged. "But I'll be thrice-cursed before I let you into my head, given the mood you're in. So," he sipped.

Harry glared, speechless and unmoving.

"To begin. First off, I was in the Hall that evening. Second, you did not see me—no one did. I gave the alarm to Dumbledore that you'd been sucked into one of Voldemort's more facile schemes,"—Harry winced, or would've, if he'd retained the use of his facial muscles—"and Apparated there, using the sounds of battle to disguise my entry."

Harry blinked very quickly, the only physical expression he was able to manage, and attempted to convey that he had a pertinent question—reams of them, to be blunt. Snape nodded sharply at him, as if he'd picked up on that.

"You saw Mr. Black in the Veil, Harry, and that was true enough. Indeed, I believe you spoke to him a certain number of years later, just before the final confrontation?"

Harry blinked fast, the closest he could get to a nod, and continued to tell over his repertoire of wandless, wordless magic, seeking release. There was a way—he knew it—he just had to—_had to—_

"I took Sirius Black's body, Harry, which was not dead, although sufficient of his person had connected with that abominable Veil to release his soul. To you, and everyone else present, he _was_ deceased and his physical form vanished. I had Disallusioned it, along with myself, and sent a hex or two after that bint of Voldemort's who was tormenting you in an effort to drive her off, but—of course—you had to go and chase after her."

Snape sipped again, and apparently got his much-tried temper fully under control.

"He took me," Sirius's voice interjected, before Severus could speak, "back to Spinner's End, from what he said, Harry, and installed me there in the Wizarding Quarters of the house—here, in fact, or actually, his guest bedroom. I don't believe you were aware of this place? No? Well—few are, indeed," Sirius chuckled.

Snape, too, smiled—a real one, which knocked Harry for a loop all over again. Snape never smiled; certainly not like that! Not with fondness and genuine good humour—and Merlin! Hadn't he and Sirius hated one another?! _Really_ hated one another?

"Too true," Snape confirmed, glancing over at Harry's long-lost godfather. "Thankfully." A look passed between them that Harry couldn't quite interpret—was that…was that _affection_?!

"To continue," Snape said, and brought his dark eyes back to Harry.

*

"How about this one, Draco darling? Twelve bedrooms, not including the Master Suite; Tudor main with Regency and Classical additions—see them, the wings? Aren't they lovely? So very odd it's trendy, really. And all those bedrooms include fully updated adjoined _en suites_, every Muggle and Wizard mod con conceivable," Elinora was on a roll, her saleswoman's tongue caressing every syllable. "And the kitchen, Draco—oh, the kitchen!"

Draco's lips actually parted at the vision she'd summoned up. Every angle, every line was clean and clear, the ancient Tudor walls unobscured by the two vastly different architectural attachments tucked behind the man face. It was gorgeous—and then Elinora began presenting the interiors.

"There's a wine cellar and a jetted hot tub in the glasshouse; there's not one, but two separate libraries and stable space for twenty in the main barn—there it is, right by the carriage house, in the back, honee—see? And the current owner is the Seeker for Puddlemere, so of course there's a fully by Wizarding Hoyle Regulation Pitch within an easy walk of the Regency wing," she prattled on. "Oh, and these are the main bedrooms—they say both Queen Mab and the Muggle Queen Elizabeth Rex both slept in this one—separately, of course!"

"Salazar!" Draco murmured, and watched his dream house scan out before his very bemused gaze: greenhouses, pergolas, knot gardens and more. "Elinora—_how!?"_

*

"I brought him here and did what I could to keep his body alive, Harry. He'd sustained quite serious damage from the spell Bellatrix sent at him, so a Stasis was the best I could do for the first few weeks or so—"

Harry was blinking madly. _Why!? Why didn't you tell anyone!?_ his thoughts howled. _Dumbledore—_me_?! What in Merlin's Name were you thinking, you codgy old bastard?!_

All the anger—the sheer burning weight of hatred—every ounce Snape had ever inspired in the bounds of Harry's madly beating chest cavity—it was right there, front and center, along with astonishment, and disbelief, and sheer befuddlement. And gratitude; yes, _gratitude_, for Severus Snape had accomplished the bloody impossible. No matter how he tried to wrap his mind 'round what was happening—what he was being told, so very pedantically—Harry just couldn't manage it.

"Fortunately, Hogwarts has—or had, though of course they now work under suitable contracts—

any number of house elves freely available, Potter, and even more serendipitously, I discovered one with the necessary amount of native intelligence and healing know-how to assist me. I restrained myself—with effort—from putting Black out of his misery several times—" and here Sirius snorted with muffled laughter and tossed his long glossy hair back over one velvet-lapelled shoulder—"and began to brew potions to assist in his recovery."

"Harry—I may call you 'Harry', yes?" Sirius spoke, picking up the tale, and leant forward in a confiding way, "what Severus means is that he healed my body. Only that, but that took up a great deal of his precious time and was, from what I learnt at a much later date, nearly impossible." Harry's godfather grinned, that self-same self-deprecating, utterly charming half-grin that had sent all the Hogwarts girls into fits thirty or more years before.

"Still don't know quite why he bothered, but he succeeded, despite himself," Sirius chuckled, twinkling over at Snape's superior expression. 'Didn't you, Severus?" The elegant man gestured carelessly at himself, resplendent in his silk paisley smoking jacket and wool trousers, and still breathtakingly handsome, the years sitting all too lightly on his classical Black features.

Harry gaped, or tried to. Sirius had been far from this rosy picture of robust health and happiness the last _he _saw him.

"I did, as you see," Snape agreed, with a self-satisfied nod. "However, it was a fairly pointless effort, as Mr. Black was not inhabiting his body for the most part, having been captured by the Veil. Even with all the effort expended, I had managed to heal and maintain his physical shell and that was all—hardly worth the trouble of mentioning it to Dumbledore—or to _you_, Harry."

_Ahh!_ Harry's green eyes stretched wide as he realized exactly what Sev was implying. With that, his resurgence of blind hatred began to leach ever so slowly away, like sand particles draining out of an hourglass, and the astonishment and sense of bewilderment returned, full force.

_How _had_ Sev managed it?_ queried Harry's ever-active curiosity, his Slytherin instincts wanting every detail. No one, but no one, raised the dead with any success rate—not and lived long enough to tell about it. The sacrifices were far too great—and highly ignoble, and even with his body Bound and his functions impaired by what amounted to a powerful Stunner, Harry could always sense Dark Magic. There was none of that here. Not a whiff. So—_how_ had this happened, if what his eyes—and his ears, via the alarmingly unfanciful person of his old Potions Master—were telling him was truth?

*

Rituals, even incomplete ones, are mysterious and magical things. When the realization of just exactly what he was seeing and what Snape was saying and what—_oh, gods! But Sirius didn't even recognize him!_ sounded the refrain, over and over—it all might mean gradually infiltrated Harry's stunned brain—_boom!_ It was as if a subterranean explosion of enormous proportions had taken place in the world of Magick, the shock waves resounding even to Hogsmeade, where Harry's fiancé was experiencing a revelation of his own.

Draco's was much the happier of the two events—it held none of the pained confusion, the helplessness, the sheer onslaught of _anger-denial-bargaining-NO-acceptance_ that Harry's did. Here Draco was, faced with a curious old—and older, perhaps, than even Elinora realized, in parts, judging by the remains of the moat—building that looked as though it had been wrought by daft Wizards and practically oozed of 'home' and 'comfort' and 'lay your head down here, dearie.' Draco's response was one of unexpected delight—an overwhelming feeling, much as one falls into when experiencing ice cream for the first time as a child, or a long-time crush's first willing kiss, or the damp muzzle of a newborn Kneazle's tiny, triangular face into the lines of the palm.

But Harry's need was undeniably the greater of the two; without thought, without conscious effort, the bonds of the Ritual forced them together, and Draco Disapparated, mid-gasp.

This was a good thing, he decided later—much later—as it obviated the need for putting Harry through the wringer twice, explaining. And it allowed him to protect Harry from Snape and Harry's own—_I _know_ he's dead, _Draco's mind screamed, scrambling for firm ground_, so why the fuck?!—_dearly beloved but sadly deceased godfather. Which was yet another conundrum, as Draco couldn't ever have conceived of a situation in which he would feel the need to protect Harry from his own fussy, overprotective godfather, much less the living dead man who'd been Harry's so-dear father figure.

Draco had his wand out, even as he stepped elegantly out of the Disapparate, and Harry's stiff, goggle-eyed person was placed safely behind him, where it should be. He unbound Harry with a mutter and faced up to Severus Snape, unblinking, fully willing to duel to the death, if necessary.

_No one_ threatened Harry Potter's peace-of-mind without going through Draco Malfoy first. And no one would ever touch his Harry whilst Draco drew breath. That was how it was, and how it always would be.


End file.
